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BONDS
When she asks me if I remember whenI lost my virginity I have to stopand consider the question beforethe obvious answer appears and I say“according to my birth certificate, Ilost my virginity at 11:31 P,Mat the Washington Children;sMedical Center more than sevendecades ago, although I haveto admit I have no recollectionof the event, nor the…
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THE OLD MAN
My father was the old mancurled in the hospital bed,his mind and memoriesseeping into the sheetsuntil only the husk remainedand I knew that it, too,would soon be reduced to ash.In my dream I wasthe old man in that bedbut I knew it was not mefor I clearly rememberedmy fading father wellwhile he, in those days,remembered…
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TOTTERING
The world did not collapse today,although it tottered on the edge againas it does most days in recent memory.As a child we expected the world might endunless we hid under our deskswhen the alarms went off, so littledid we know about nuclear weaponsand what could be more uselessthan a desk at or near ground zero.We…
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MIND
It takes so little to take you back. It takes no thinking but sensing to take you back.You catch an aroma of a fresh baked pie and you are thirteen and baking for the first time, apple with a lattice top for a parent soon back from the hospital. A song played in memory of…
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SMALL REFLECTION
It is that moment when the moonis a glaring crescent,slowly engulfed bythe impending night—when the few clouds give outtheir fading glowin the jaundiced lightof the sodium arc street lamp.It nestles the curb—at first a small bird—when touched, a twisted piece of root. I want to walk into the weed-strewnaging cemetery, stand in the shadowof the…
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WAITING IMPATIENTLY
Waiting rooms are usually somber.That is true of most hospitalsand every mortuary. It isn’t like we needto be prepared for whatmight happen next. In the hospital the surgeon,at the direction of lawyers,has given us the worst case. In the mortuary we are certainthe departed was no saintso resurrection is out of the picture. I’m not…
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REMEMBER THIS
He awoke this morning, and wassurprised to be there, he said,because when you are ninety,and can’t get around at all,you don’t look forward to tomorrow,for it will simply be a repeatof today when nothing will happen.And it is harder still, he says,because he can’t remember much anymore,so it’s hard to say if todayis any different…
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ER
They are arranged like so much ill-stacked cordwood, pressed against walls that are indifferent to their presence. They watch the double doors leading to the examining rooms with trepidation, wanting to be next, wanting more not to be here at all, knowing that the options are none or fewer. He isn’t bothered by it all,…
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CRAFTY MOON
The moon hid from me last night in a cloudless sky, and only a week from full, so we both knew it was there, peeking for a brief moment from behind the old oak in the neighbors yard. It wasn’t the first time the moon had done this, it will not be the last either,…
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IN A ROOM OF HORSE MANURE
My sister only wanted a horse an my parents thought they could solve that dilemma with a pony at her fifth birthday party where she would get all the extra rides, her friends and playmates be damned. Like most great parental plans, this one was doomed to failure, and failure marched front and center as…
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an old writer and his words 