Holy Innocents

“Aunt Nina,” my mother said. “Aunt Tilly… Uncle Herb….” These aunts are my mother’s great-aunts, my grandmother’s aunts. We were driving Grandma home from Christmas dinner. We had found a topic of conversation that was safe. That is difficult. My grandmother has names of her great-aunts and uncles, and their jobs, and terrible fears, and […]

Dickens, Capitalism, and Jesus

I believe in Charles Dickens Christmas. Magnificent capitalist Christmas is fun, too. I like spending outrageous sums of money once a year. It’s exciting. Sometimes I even believe in Jesus Christmas. Charles Dickens Christmas is “mankind is my business” and drinks for everyone. It’s also Scrooge, wonderful Scrooge, so bitter and angry and not giving […]

Dark

It was almost sunset when I got my coffee. And the first time I looked up, it was so dark out, it was like I’d been buried alive. It was 5:30. What happened? That afternoon, as it got closer to writing time, my brain got cranky. This is how it will always be. No one […]

I and the Village

Blank fruit slices and the red-brimmed hat, cow on her way to slaughter, and she smells buds and grapes and blossoms. The cow knows the man needs and the needs of the cow are care. The cow will be cared for and the man, fed. The cow knows she used to be milk and touched […]