America in Short

It’s amazing what a few christmas lights and a brief moment of springtime can do.

Read Full Post »

Some nights, clarity seems so close.

These days, I’m pondering over small rooms, devotion, laceless shoes, dying daisies, laundry days, Germans, exercise, and how much time it takes to clear one’s head.

Read Full Post »

So this is Sanieh.

And we’ll be leading a retreat this summer here :

… and I think you should come.

For more info, click HERE!

Read Full Post »

When it rains, I always picture the tree above the roof falling on the house. It doesn’t even need to be raining, really. I made my roommate switch rooms so it would be his bed crushed under the largest branch. He didn’t mind, slightly larger room, and when he shrugged and said okay, I wondered just how many quirks he’d put up with. I already had my bed on stilts because the plumbing was too noisy, but I may have been making that up, or how I liked to sleep with my door slightly open because closed doors, I told him, I felt were too exclusive. Again, he shrugged, and now has to make his morning coffee quietly as to not wake me.

He did like that I supplied to furniture and sometimes had a friend or two over he could hit on. And he would, theatrically so, often his arm around one, winking at another. THe right blend of insecurity and shelteredness was bound to fall. Watching him tell the same made up story about running with the bulls in Spain, his fashion sneakers still a brilliant red, I get reminded something my first girlfriend’s mother said the first time I came over. We were sixteen and I had just taken my driving test. We had dinner and talked about school or intramurals or jazz choir. Right as I left, right at the front door was closed behind me, I hear the mother say, “I’ll never understand why the prettiest girls always date the ugliest boys.”

I’m never exactly sure what my roommate does to make me think of that.

Maddie always saw through my roommate though. Maddie walked in beauty, was that Byron? She wasn’t beautiful, no, she was walked in it. She’d always bring fresh flowers and her wrap around skirts always fit impeccably well.

Maddie came over with scones she made and my roommate tried all his usual tricks which were met with Maddie’s uh-huhs and occasionally an unenthusiastic oh really? Wow… I liked watching her combat him.

I remember scurrying home in the rain, staring up at the tree above the house, stepping inside and having him ask me for Maddie’s number, or even her e-mail would do, he told me. I gave it, thinking her reaction to his pursuit would be entertaining if nothing else.

And then a week later, seeing her fight off tears in our kitchen after I saw her use his toothbrush the night before.

Willing it to rain, or else I’d cut that damn branch down myself.

Read Full Post »

Carl and I used to drink Dr. Pepper and pretend we were doctors.

We thought it was the greatest game ever.

Read Full Post »

I kissed a fluttering eyelid.

Her nose pressed against my collarbone, her eyes open.

She looked over my shoulder, cartilage against bone.

“You’ve no idea how to love, do you?” I said.

“Sure I do. Just flap your arms and say ‘choo choo,’” her voice went up. “Right?”

“Yeah, that’ll work,” I said.

Read Full Post »

i remember when i used to point my pen directly at her heart.

Read Full Post »

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably
fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes
have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we
spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight
pours through

the open living room windows because the heat’s on too high in here, and
I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street,
the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying
along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my
wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called
that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to
pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss – we want more and more and
then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the
window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing
so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m
speechless:

I am living, I remember you.

———–

Marie Howe, from her 1998 collection, What the Living Do

Read Full Post »

Read Full Post »