• FLIGHT

    As a young child, I always imaginedmyself a bird, poised to take wingthe next time my parents told meI couldn’t do what I wanted,to swoop around, out of their grasp,until it was time for lunch or dinner. Years later my dream was to bea pilot, Air Force not Navy, I mightget seasick and that isn’t…


  • ORATION

    Our cat has become a conversationalist. Her vocabulary grows larger each day. She seemingly shares her every thought with us, and admittedly we talk to and through her with some regularity as well. She does grow frustrated when we don’t immediately understand what she is saying, what she wants in a given moment. That is…


  • CUISINE

    When I was younger (much), Icould wander Manhattan and bewhat any neighborhood required,so long as I stayed southof 110th Street or north of 155th. I was Greek ordering gyros,Russian at the Tea Room,Italian along Mulberry and Canal,although in Chinatown I was justsomeone who wandered a bit farfrom the heart of Little Italy. I could order…


  • THE WRITER

    Why do I write, you ask.I’m a writer, so I should havea good answer, or at least a glib one. I could say I write for othersbut you would ask whothose others are, and smile knowinglywhen I have no answer. I could say I write for myself,and that would be true enough,but rather sad and…


  • CAREER CHOICES

    We were certain then that we’d bea success in life, that we’d drivethe kind of cars our fathersonly dreamed of as our motherschuckled about mid-life crises. They spoke about sons and daughtersof friends who were doctors,or at least lawyers, bemoanedthose who taught or held jobsthey called manual labor. But we were going in a whole…


  • COOKBOOK

    As a youngster I thought I hadconvinced my grandmotherto one day entrust me withthe old family recipes, sincemy mother wanted little to dowith the kitchen and less withanything that came from “there.” It was a bit of a shock to learnyears later that grandma wasborn in London, that her mothershared my mother’s dislikefor the kitchen…


  • FOR SALE

    For a reasonable sum,I can have a star named after me,and get a certificate suitablefor framing declaring it so. I’d like to buy a group of starsin relatively close proximityeach to the others, and ratherthan naming each after me, I’d name the lot with one name,my personal constellation,perhaps Buddhist, the sky coulduse a Bodhisattva of…


  • NO BACKS

    As you age, your vision changes,and not merely that of your eyes,for you necessarily becomenear sighted about many things. Of course you dread the fact that youcould be myopic if circumstancesconspire against you, barely ableto be IN and remember the moment. Even those healthy take to mythology,and astronomy, wishing they wereTitan, living life in retrograde,…


  • THE WRITER STUMBLES

    Each yearin Pamplonathe bulls begintheir slow descentdown the narrow streetsgaining speednostrils flaringmuscle and sinews tautthey forge aheada white wavepreceding themin their mad dashand each yearthere is one,some years twowho, by slip of footor lapse of judgmentmeet the hornsof the lead bullwho in disgustsnorts“this oneis noHemingway.” First published in Defenestration ,Vol XVI Issue 2 August 2019


  • RECITAL

    The keys didn’t frighten me. 88 of them, but I’d never use the majority, probably. And the ones I knew were generally well behaved, although they did defy me from time to time, and then said it was my fault, they didn’t respond to wishes, just fingers, And even the audience didn’t bother me, not…