Circles

Down three flights of stairs, round around, our walls stamped with a flowery pattern and the linoleum floor and stair treads, all 19th-century filthy, probably at some point a whitish and all a who-knows shade of dinge now. Sometimes I think about taking out a bucket and scrubbing the steps until I feel better. Today […]

Leashed

I couldn’t believe how happy she was to see me. It was like having a stalker. My cat is happy to see me, but a dog– that’s different. Seeing me was the best thing that ever happened to Daisy, and I wasn’t even that nice to her. We did the same walk we always do […]

Alleys

VLADIMIR:You don’t remember any fact, any circumstance? ESTRAGON:(weary). Don’t torment me, Didi. I went to the bar and ordered wine. “Large or small?” the bartender said. I went with small. Then I got in line to bond with my fellow women, all of us praying for a moment alone with a toilet […]

Scrub

This week I was interviewed by local media, visited the Museum of the American Indian, had my essays critiqued, prepared to travel to a meeting of a state agency in Albany with students, took other students ice skating, and chanted in four languages at two different, equally charming, churches. I’m thinking more about scrubbing the […]