You Who Have Ears

I spent three days this summer not hearing. This is the dangerous thing I had done: dip my head back to wash my hair in the bathtub. For three days my right ear received no sound waves, but many ministrations: hydrogen peroxide, sweet oil, rubbing alcohol. When something isn’t working, I can’t let it alone. Tell […]

Posture

My morning included an emergency walk around the block (just put your shoes on and get the fury and terror out of you) and a call to my sister (she’s not at work yet, she’ll talk you down), so you know it wasn’t good. Forces were conspiring to make nothing work, to give me no […]

Missing

The sister received an empty cradle for committing. One wisdom tooth pulled three kept in my mouth. I used to know all the phone numbers. I found faces in the moon. The lady in Mary Poppins who pops off her fingers, joint by joint, and offers them to children as candy. The Emily Dickinson lace. […]

His Effort Was Not In Vain

When my roommate texted me I think your fish is dead, I was in the monastery library. I only use my phone for the time, and for guided meditations, while I’m there, but I had it with me, and thus I was thrown from perfect peace. My fish was dead! I was sad! I shouldn’t […]