Black Clouds
After the nursing home was paid, all that remained of my father’s legacy was his stark depression, handed down from one generation of fearful Russian Jews to the next And finally given to me. Now when the black clouds come,… Read more ›
Monthly Archives: March 2013
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Becoming Mastroianni
I was a precocious child. I declared myself An existentialist at age 15, Before I could even spell it, Convinced that if God wasn’t absent He was certainly sleeping on the job. That same year I saw La Dolce Vita… Read more ›
Love at High Altitude
The blue blue lake and snow-capped peaks literally take your breath away. Red-faced and panting, chewing on your coca leaves like a ruminating cow, you trudge along the sinuous path that climbs from the harbor to the hacienda on the… Read more ›
His Grandma’s Breath
Everything at his grandma’s house sighed with the burden of advancing age, the sagging sofa with its threadbare antimacassar, the chipped Italian figurines, the peeling grey linoleum on the kitchen floor. Even the parakeet hovering on his clipped wings had… Read more ›
State of Wonder
They named you Luna for the hints of moonlight in your charcoal eyes and Naia for the joy which flowed into our hearts like an untamed river the day that you were born. Reclining on a pillow in the penumbra… Read more ›
New Year’s Prayer
Our Father Who Art in Heaven, stay there with your retinue of saccharine angels and saints, orchestrating the celestial fanfare, while we remain below, content to breathe the pine-filled air, to feel the wind caress the napes of our necks,… Read more ›
Form and Color
We combined our art as we had joined our lives, covering the bare walls with prints and paintings until the creaky house exploded with form and color, Your Frida stared intently at my Degas dancers, my fiddler winked from a… Read more ›
Footprints
She left him in mid-breath, Her letters piled up, Unopened, On the kitchen table Her voice still on the machine, Apologizing for her absence And imploring the caller To leave a brief message. When he travelled to the places Where… Read more ›