• NO BOIL

    Not so much watchedas casually gazed at, andnot a pot but a smartphone,which had best not boil. No ring, not this daylost in what, an absentmind, thoughts of self,not unexpected but wanted. Distance real becomesdistance virtual, emptylater explained, wordsof apology, forgiveness but a lingering scar thatwill recede, reappearthat laughter may coverbut never fully erase.


  • CAT’S GAME

    The cat is sleeping on the lanai, on the plant table among the bromeliads. The cat spends hours sleeping on the lanai when she isn’t walking on tables. There are tables on the lanai she walks on regularly. Walking on tables is forbidden we repeatedly tell her and we know she understands, but the cat…


  • UNTIL

    I was the adoptee,was the whole for years, until. It is always the untilthat is your undoing, wasmine when sheremarried, then two births. I was one third then, neveragain truly whole and whenshe died I discoveredin her will I was onlyone twentieth, andthen never even that. I want to forget her,forget them, denythem, but all…


  • THE LETTER

    Today I should receive the letterthat I sent to myself twenty years ago,telling me what I should be, where Ishould be, who I should be, for the meof twenty years ago was, by his ownadmission, far smarter than I am, althoughI am here and he is nowhere to be found. If the letter does not…


  • PATIENCE

    Even a cat knows when the screen is on Zoom, you sit and wait. Or stick your head in the picture so all can acknowledge your presence. Either works, and you know patience is not a virtue, but at times a necessity. You are a cat, after all. Patience is for dogs, poor beasts, having…


  • MY PAIN

    I want so to say that i feelyour pain, but we’d bothknow that was an utter lie. I can tell you abut my pain,describe it at great length,and I will be utterly disappointedwhen you admit you can onlyimagine it as a reflectionof your own pain, which Iam certain doesn’t beginto rise to the level of…