Wind

Maybe you did not go to church because God lets crazy people shoot fifty strangers. I have not been going because God has ruined my life in other ways. I walked into a church, a church where no one knew me, so maybe I would feel different, and an usher told me not to […]

Sirens

The ceiling of our church is the underside of a piano, those rolls and baubles, carved rods, that make fancy furniture from rude trees. The service had been: nine slain. People had cried, well, Episcopalian cried– sniffling and wiping eyes. When I stood in the water the evening after the day at the beach, I […]

Parade

The Mermaid Parade was nice, the ride there was nicer. A female “sailor” with a “mustache” was standing next to a cooler, and what would probably become a tail. We got on the D train, and a guy asked us if anyone was going to Coney Island. Yes, I said. What is it like, he […]

Baltimore

From an interview with James Baldwin, just after the death of Dr. King: Baldwin: It is not the black people who have to cool it, because they won’t. Interviewer: Aren’t they the ones getting hurt the most, though? Baldwin: That would depend on point of view. You know, I’m not at all sure that we are […]