The dishwasher hums, and the whooshing of its water drowns out the crickets. I eat my oatmeal out of Frankie’s Frosted Flakes bowl: not another clean one remains. warm aftertasteempty pill containersbeside bottles first published in Image Curve, May 14, 2020 UPDATE: for dVerse Poets’ OpenLinkNight #267 (pubtended […]
A new light illuminates the dashboard. I divert to Midas, in vain, as the shop opens at 7:30. I don’t have time to wait. The manual says that the light indicates my tire pressure is low. Since Midas has no air pumps outside the garage, I travel east […]
I leave late. The traffic begins at the Garden State Parkway connector. The New York State Thruway, covered in fiberglass and steel, stretches into the blinding brilliance of sunrise. I arrive at work after 8, when I needed to get there well before. taillightsthe long gap in frontof […]
The passing of faces or the flipping of pages, the same feeling permeates the last spoken words I recall from my dream: they won’t listen. The tension: tightness, shortness of breath, exhaustion from that frustration: “they won’t listen.” I fight the conviction, the accusing voice condemning from shadow, […]
Mira cries. She opens her arms and holds them out toward me. I envelop her. Feel her chest heave with the staccato beat of a carpenter’s hammering. Listen to her muffled sobs. All I can do is hold her. Reassure her that she’s not alone as a lifetime’s […]
Husband, Father, Writer, Teacher. American Haijin. Because Haikai matters!
