Once Alice learned to load the shotgun, there was no stopping her. Never before had she contemplated killing Jerk. Although she had long thought about his death, she hoped it would be a quick one while he still had a job and she was the sole beneficiary on his life…
All summer Dad sat in the blue metal chair by the front door. “Can’t reach my cane,” he would call to my daughter as she played in the yard. Honey would race to him, place the cane into his knotted hands and pat his knees, then run back to her…
And the pain keeps coming. No matter how I move I can’t escape it. It burrows into my bones. It’s part of me. It’s a second animal within the first. I want to shake it off, to be free of it, but I must endure. This cannot last much longer….
“We Are Seven”: An Imposition of Wills Wordsworth shares a conversation between an older gentleman and an eight year old child regarding the number of siblings in her family in his poem, “We Are Seven.” The gentleman is a stranger to the child and she patiently explains to him that…
Hard to believe, but I wrote the following for an English class November 2000. If anyone reads it, you’ll quickly realize the foolishness of higher education when it comes to the taking of required courses. I was 53 years old & hadn’t taken a class in 26 years and it…
My name is Rain. What my last name is does not matter for I have had many surnames during my lifetime. Rain is what Shirley called me. We were friends. I taught her how to not-love anyone. Not to give her heart to anyone because everyone leaves. No matter how…
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my first confession. These are my sins for which I’m very sorry.” I don’t bow my head like Sister Mary John told us. Instead, I stare through the black curtain separating the priest from me and try to see his face,…
If we’re lucky enough to have a mid-term election next year, remember to place your X where it will do the most good. I wrote the following five years ago long before Gannett pulled me from our local paper. I was going to trash all my columns but decided prior…
Folks, during these trying times you might want to bury your head in the sand at least for a little while. I suppose that’s not a bad thing to do as you pull yourself together. I have a suggestion. If you’re tired of all the noise, the uncertainty of where…
Dreaming of lost places I awake yearning for one last walk through beige painted rooms where once I roamed freely. I ache to touch the walls, to run my gnarled fingers over the wallpaper with green roses, to trod the uncarpeted floors and smell coffee as it perks— its pungent…
I sat in the haymow and watched the sky gather black clouds until the rain came, and then I climbed down the ladder and ran barefoot through the fields of my father. The grass clung to my feet as I ran through buttercups and purple clover. I ran faster and…
I can’t imagine having my sister or brother taken from our family when we were young, but it’s happening today. I can’t even begin to imagine what will happen in the next few months if the last few have been more horrific than anyone could have believed possible. Is this…
By the time I graduated from MSU, the SDS had splintered into various factions and I was done with it. I joined the Peace Corps despite Mum’s absolute refusal to agree to my going. She worried where I would be sent and the potential physical danger I might be in….
I am a woman. That means I become half a person when I marry, a mere extension of my husband. A nameless, faceless, mindless entity born to endure his needs, to become slave to his wishes, entombed in a kitchen mop in hand dreams underfoot. I am a woman. That…
The spring of my broken ankle soft breezes blew through my bedroom window’s lacy white curtains. Fifty times a day I listened to Pachelbel’s Canon in D major as it drifted through my room. Waiting for my body to heal, my restless soul left me meandering meaninglessly through the fields…
Belle’s soft, low moans travel underneath the barn door into the cold mysterious night where nocturnal creatures scout for food, where stars sparkle in the icy sky, and God watches over every living thing. The air hangs still and light as a lace curtain, and Belle’s moans penetrate its lightness,…
Soft summer breezes dance through green trees. Leaves dip and bow. There’s no hurry now. In their movements time rents a generous space, fills it with your face. I loved you that summer of cloudless skies, unending wind, early morning mists melting time present into time past. I loved you…
We don’t need a brilliant mind to understand what’s going on in Washington. It’s clear that a non-military coup has been accomplished. How did this happen? Why didn’t we notice the poison as it dripped into our collective psyche? Why did we ignore it? I have a theory: We demanded…
The 9:02 a.m. ride to the 25th floor of the Penobscot Building in downtown Detroit goes slowly. I glance around and realize I’ve been spotted. The office bookkeeper nods a curt greeting while mentally noting my tardiness. Third time this week I’ve been late. I know she’ll make a note…
I am old now. Lines crisscross my face in no particular pattern as if some half-crazed spider forgot how to spin her web. Each morning brings more bad news. Just when I get used to the lines burrowing deep within my jowls giving me a Charlie McCarthy appearance, age spots…
Rex fell in love with me the summer I was ten. His attention made Mum awful mad. Every evening after the milking was done and the cows put out to pasture Rex rode his bike down the road to our place. He’d take the front steps two at a time,…
I have no idea who’s singing the song I wrote but my brother thought it was worth paying someone to record it. I liked it then. I like it now. What prompted me to write a song? I figured if I threw in a broken-hearted fellow, some whiskey, & a…
A rusty old nail sticks out of a post Sticking out of the ground in Dad’s field. Its work is done, the cows are gone Yet it refuses to yield. Does it recall its younger days When it was tall and strong? And kept the cows from wondering Where they…
When I was sixteen, Mr. Buckley, my tenth grade English teacher—a portly, middle-aged bachelor who wore thick, black-rimmed glasses over his dark eyes, shabby shirts and jeans, and a black tam over his balding head—brought a grocery bag full of paperback books into our classroom and dumped them on his…
I’m a sailor on the Edward L. Ryerson. A ship called the Queen of the Lakes. I work every day in the engine room. I work as my broken heart aches. We sail from Superior to Hamilton. We pass through the famous Soo Locks. I stand on the deck of…
