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The Letter A
The alphabet flexes its muscle. A stands for apologies and axes. In a world at war, art is an apple I cannot chew for clenching my jaw, a fruit that never ripens, but it sits on my tongue like a communion wafer I am forbidden to spit out. True, hymns draw no blood, break no…
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Static
Bless the bed that does not complain about my heft or my squirreling under covers to burrow into sleep, an acreage adjacent to the moon and to other citizens of the dark. In the hours of trust and silence a dizziness in my inner ear rights itself, freed of the noise from guns and quakes,…
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Feed Them
Imagine a child who has never tasted an orange. Maybe that was me. Why buy oranges in a family where one grandmother was known for lemon meringue pie, the other for her strawberry shortcake from scratch? Now I buy oranges weekly. In winter they come from Chile and are sold, not by the pound like…
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Slow Brain
“…all things have their place…” 365 TAO Frustration, then delight when, finally, my mind releases a needed missing noun or verb from my way-back stacks. Welcoming the hesitating word, I hug it but can only savor the syllables on my tongue, share them with my voice or pen before they shrug and retire yet again…
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Slow Exodus
Four squatters huddle in tents, makeshift and close to traffic on the narrow cement verge of a six-lane boulevard. They dwell in rush hour’s stink, until winter stalks them and heavy snow threatens. They all agree to vacate their flimsy roadside homes before nightfall when city plows will smash them flat. The oldest man leaves…
Karen Douglass, Author 