There are six swans in the backyard. They stay so close to the house that I can make out the jagged parts of their beaks when they aim for insects in the shallow, man-made pond. I can make out the unfeathered patch of skin between eyes and bill. They wear their faces like they aren’t […]
The sun dawdled on the yellow windowsill. The house was quiet. Noisy youths played ball in the street, but all was silent inside. I was as quiet as an owl in a barn, too quiet for my neighbour, Victoria, queen of the fifth floor who said I was melancholic, and that word soup was more preferable than my quietude. I was […]
There was a small house on the bank of the Suwannee that slanted down towards the root-beer-colored water. The house was one room, the side wall a sliding glass door overlooking the sturgeons that belly-flopped downstream. The carpet was tattered and torn; the pullout couch was moldy and musty. The Frigidaire dripped because the mice […]
Allison was going to get married in Ronkonkoma, so I was waiting for the train. Summer heat shimmered over the Jamaica Station tracks. There had been a run on air conditioners; newly-installed models tilted at perilous angles out of New York’s windows. My traveling outfit—a gray tee and homemade cut-offs that dangled sloppy fringe—was drenched […]