My brother, Basil, and I have collaborated over the years, mainly on songs written specially for the weddings of our siblings, children, nieces and nephews. This one has its roots in a legend. Lying in the shadows, a legend waits for the afternoon sun. On a summer evening, out of Mt. Hosmer’s face, comes the […]
marriage
Leaving
LEAVING Moving, slowly at first, a walk further than usual, earlier than before though not quite at dawn, a loose leash of daylilies at the ankle, then a night under Orion disappearing, each horizon a new mote in the eye. Moving along is how, looking back, I left.
The End
We talked as though we were strangers, side by side on the deck of a boat near Jeffrey’s Ledge on a summer Sunday; but the subject was familiar. We pulled in flashy mackerel, apricot squid, tossed them back. We hauled up dogfish; we caught the same ones over and over. They were heavy as […]
Trial Separation
TRIAL SEPARATION I rented a little windblown house with two bedrooms and a single tree in the back yard onto which every morning evening grosbeaks descended like a brief squall. I bought new sleeping bags and a portable record player for my sons. I changed my brand of dish liquid to one that smelled exactly […]
Mary Cassatt at the Diner
MARY CASSATT AT THE DINER She was young and her children very young. She had agreed to meet her husband’s anxious student-lover in a back booth and had stayed for the duration of her babysitter’s hour (though half of it would have been enough) to hear an earnest exposition on the reasons for her husband’s […]
White
The photograph is browning but the frame still gleams: a baroque affair, dense with silver storks and songbirds nesting in silver marsh marigolds and roses; a tiny silver scale and a miniature clock with its hands stilled a ten past eight. Engraved below: ARRIVED NOVEMBER 7, 1943 WEIGHT 7 LBS 14 OZ. The baby’s fat […]
