She won’t give me the fish storybook. I take it. Reading the first few pages angrily, aggressively, the door shatters its bell-chime sound and I see my mother t...
He will not be talking about Barentsburg, tonight. He, William Edwards, Emeritus Professor, frequent guest lecturer on Arctic cruises, will talk about much to d...
A black tile T stretches across the floor of the hotel pool. Last time I saw tiles like that I was six and convinced they were hammerhead sharks. But then I had...
From the back porch, I check on the fire’s progress. Just over the tree line, dark columns of smoke billow. The fires, I know, are closing fast on the ranch. Th...
Most people are intimidated by anything that remotely resembles electricity. They behave as if even when an item is unplugged, electrodes remain inside and, at...
When he presses her up against the cool ceramic sink, her arms plunge into the water. He lifts up her patchwork pinafore, the one that ties oh-so-loosely at th...
Mum pads into our room when she’s finished her set on the piano, very late. I wake and watch her undress. She pulls the covers over her and looks across the roo...
In the Russian Taiga, the forests west of Moscow, there are places where compasses do not work. Where there is so much lead in the trees, so many bullets hidden...
You should have had a raucous Irish wake, the kind you see in movies. A bottle should have been passed from mourner to mourner, each telling stories about you, ...
You look in the mirror at your bent face, feel the side of it numb where, when they fixed you, they damaged the nerves. A year later the side is swollen still, ...
