Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956
The month wanes. Soon my mother will make sure I swallow three shredded dates daily, for the blood of me. I say: no can’t you see it’s a chore to dig them out, tongue on teeth. And she says: no you must, for the blood of you and the good of me. So go out now and get those dates before you need to always…
When I teach, I have students read to the class about a significant event in their lives. One young woman said she didn’t mind being locked in the cellar with her older brothers, but she didn’t think it was fair they had to share one plate of bread and milk. Her brothers were bigger. The class was silent and I rushed in to say something…
I’m the type to go unseen in the world. I’m the milk of women. —Ellen Welcker Once while boarding a train Marilyn Monroe turned to a friend and said Do you want to see me turn it on? She didn’t change clothes, but suddenly autograph-seekers swarmed over her blue light. Sometimes it’s like that—deciding to be wanted. Wanting to be watched. A secret sonar sent…
In the recent documentary, My Beautiful Broken Brain, a thirty-four-year-old woman in London records her recovery from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) following a massive stroke. While watching, I couldn’t help but relive my own experiences surviving a TBI, and the years following that catastrophic event. At first, I thought: I’m so lucky that my injury wasn’t so severe. Yet as the film progressed, and I…
Image: Scott Web, Public Domain CC0 Image