Sun

I saw Lincoln’s poor threadbare hat in the American History Museum, but my heart wasn’t open until I saw a Degas, a very rough Degas in reds and browns and blacks with awful lines and a turn in it that grabbed me. Somehow looking at paintings teaches me about form in writing, moving my eyes around […]

The Sweater

For a few hours, I had this great friend. I had both spent a long weekend at a writing retreat in the February-infected deep dark woods of Pennsylvania. It was lovely there, in a dim sort of way. The buildings of this Quaker retreat center were gorgeously simple rectangles, old white. There was a window […]

Prodigal

“Melting is a common end-of-life scenario for many snowmen.” We used to go to the occult section at the bookstore and look at the decks. My standard for a “good” deck was that it was pretty. They keep tarot cards locked up in cases in bookstores. I guess people will steal them. Or steal cards, […]

Hippo

The hippo emits a reddish fluid that led some people to think hippos sweat blood. They do not. The reddish substance is a sort of sunscreen for the delicate skin of the hippo. Hippos don’t sweat. They get in the water. What I like more about hippos is that I understood their name early in […]