The lights caught her first. They made the window glow with elfin colors, warming the foggy glass, spreading soft light out into the cold street, pulling her in, grabbing her attention, widening her eyes. She pulled her face up against the wet glass, her weight pushing down through her straight arms on to the sill as she balanced on the tip of her toes, resting on the edge of her heavy shoes’ rubber soles. The cold and the snow and the ice seemed to disappear as she peered inside. The lights were stars in a display of old toys, wispy glints in the sky above a circus parade getting ready to board a huge rust-dented steam ship. Elephants lead the… Continue >>
The highway here goes on and on. Even in the twilight I can see a vast emptiness in all directions, with only this thin ribbon of pavement cutting through to assure the traveler he is tethered to earth. In mid-day, the heat rises off these flats with an intensity that makes you think you’re in Hell’s furnace, and at midnight the Milky Way sweeps so close to the road that you think you’re on Heaven’s doorstep. But right now at twilight, there is just emptiness–an uncertain color in the uncertain light–and the highway slicing through on its way to nowhere I shift down and slip my Jaguar off the pavement, turning down the radio so I can hear the crunch… Continue >>
At my age I find that memories die much faster than they were made. Every day that I add to this end of life, I fear that I lose forever many more days of my youth. I miss them, those long forgotten days, but I suppose if I live long enough, I’ll forget that too. Still, some of those days return like old friends, as regular as August, and as welcome as sleep. These precious few, bidden, or as often not, gladden my heart and are strengthened by the remembrance. They will visit me forever; long after the names of teachers, friends, and lovers have left for lands unknown, never to return. My mother, gone these 30 years, still visits… Continue >>
We danced the Tango on newly-cut grass and across the white-gravel driveway, hopping more than gliding, stumbling and trying not to hurt each other. I was eight years old and she was my best friend. There was no music, of course, except what we always heard in each other’s company; the music of friendship. I held the dandelion in my teeth – she wouldn’t even try. She shuffled and hopped over my feet, her skinny legs trying desperately to keep up. We fumbled through the mechanics of the dance; she with one arm out stiff with mine, the other draped over my shoulder; my hand pressing into her lower back and pulling her along. My mother watched us from the… Continue >>