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Summer 2011

My mother told me just this morning (Friday, June 17, 2011) that I should write something about how my affliction with cancer is really an affliction that the whole family has in some way. I believe her. I believe it.

Vaucluse

  Virid is the spring that snakes through our garden   dappled with sun-shade (snake-skin)    surrounded by choked-up laurels and strange purple flowers that waver in the water like reflected nightmares “Let me show you La Fontaine,” I take his hand and lead him up the garden path, deeper, ducking our heads for the […]

My father had this girlfriend. Her name was Gemma Fay. She looked like Mia Farrow. I think. I only saw her once and she was naked then. Gemma Fay was my father’s first girlfriend and, therefore, the anti-hero of every cautionary tale he ever told.

That dizzying last summer we explored the one billion possibilities of bumblebee assassination. We learned lacing the curb with Dr. Pepper to lure them under a false pretense of sweetness was easiest, most merciful, for the shadows of our black devil shoe soles were guillotine-swift and double-quick to evict the poor souls from their black […]

Strange birds

The cloud cleared and the sun broke through. Exotic birds with warm colours, probably from Africa, landed on the back wall, as light as air and yet strong enough to cross deserts and oceans. I’m no ornithologist but I’d say they belong to the tit family. One thing you don’t expect is a vulture to […]