Browsing Category Prose, Poetry, and Art

6 images of a whale breaching and summering, arranged chronologically in a grid

Quarantine Academy—Dear Lovely Students:

in Poetry on March 11, 2021 January 21, 2021

A mash up of 90-plus letters to my students in emails and a daily blog during COVID-19 school closures Well, this is it, it is Tuesday, and we are not going to school. This is…

image of split rail fence crossing meadow with forest in the background

Two Poems

in Poetry on March 4, 2021 February 19, 2021

Fences We built fences along the spine of the Blue Ridge, bore through the shale deposits like a fist invading the sovereignty of someone’s nose. We sweated through our heat-faded shirts, turned tawny and blistered…

image from 1907 of ice cave in a glacier

Three Poems

in Poetry on February 25, 2021 February 19, 2021

Ice Caves I can’t hike the Cascades without thinking the worst, be it rockslide or heatstroke, or cougar springing out of the ferns and devil’s club. Day of fun ruined. My dad carries a Glock…

three images of mike the headless chicken viewed through blue, yellow, and green filters

Two Poems

in Poetry on February 18, 2021 January 5, 2021

This Strange Continent Let’s write of our grandmothers. Mamaw always made biscuits. Her rings hung around her thin fingers like a rattle. With these hands that drove a munitions truck during the war, that beat…

The Costume Chest

in Fiction on February 11, 2021 June 3, 2021

part one: posed normajeanie’s room is open Norma sets her laptop on the old costume chest at the foot of the bed.[1] Socks pulled up to her knees, an ambiguous ring on her left hand—these…