Blathering
Fairy Dust
When I was seven years old, I received incontrovertible proof that fairies were real. It happened on a summer’s day. Midsummer? Maybe. I woke in the bed I shared with my twin sister to find a silver ring on my Read more
Blathering
The reluctant beau
“Men have no standards,” my friend joked recently. His wife said, “Now, what does that say about me, sweetie? If you have no standards…” it had the air of an oft-repeated conversation and I was irritated by the complacent amusement Read more
Announcement
Houses
My poetry professor gave out an assignment to write five interconnected, longer poems. The goal was that by the end of his course we would all write book-length poems. I was mad in love with the old victorian mansions of Read more
Blathering
The Old Inversion Trick
You’ve seen it before, on Star Trek or an episode of the Twilight Zone, in movies and books and slush pile stories: in this story, the white people are oppressed! Or it’s a matriarchy or in this society it’s normal Read more
Blathering
Blood like candy
When I was young, in my twenties, I walked past a man who had just been shot. It was on Euclid Avenue, an ugly stretch with a brown strip mall of empty store fronts on one side and a gravel Read more
Blathering
Poetry
In college, I took the advanced poetry class (after the beginning and the intermediary) and on the first day the professor asked, “Who here is a poet?” Two or three hands went up. I didn’t raise mine. In booming outrage, Read more
Blathering
The 50s are OUT
So there I was, in my natural habitat, the dancefloor. I was in my early twenties, getting my groove on, flirting with the boys, attracting a lot of them, keeping them in line, not paying for drinks. Not to brag. Read more