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…

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…

It might recite the weight of wheels, copy insults from birds, giggle at the tickle of rabbit feet or mourn the stench of squirrel carcass, at night quake when sirens scream “Bad News, Bad News, Make Way!” but today the pavement bares drifting snow and pleads for the sun’s warmth. Come spring the tar will…

Looking beyond myself, I see a man in the market stocking ugli fruit. It is too big, too green, too other, alien as a green brain, but said to be cherished by elephants, who cleave its pebbly skin open to reach pulp that holds the seeds. In what famine would it feed me, in what…

Imagine a blizzard, a sod house– layers of clothes, extra logs inside, fire stories and white bean soup. Hot tea, oatmeal. Best if you like the people snowed in with you. Firelight, candles, songs, cold feet. Chapped hands darning, knitting, whittling. No clock, only deeper dark and a guide rope strung house to cow shed…