Sophia’s Childhood
Her rejection as a child helps to explain her constant search as a woman for what she had missed. Even as Empress Catherine, at the height of her autocratic… More
Cross-Country Skiing
In November, before the snow, I’d got lost in these woods and spent part of a chilly night curled up in wet leaves. After it snowed, however, I could… More
Drums That Talk
Here was a messaging system that outpaced the best couriers, the fastest horses on good roads with way stations and relays. Earth-bound, foot-based messaging systems always disappointed. Their armies… More
Bringer of Fire
“Bugs? You got me for fucking bugs?!” He savagely backhanded me and I fell to the floor, the taste of copper in my mouth. Standing over me he screamed… More
My Banned Books
Before the decade ended, I was asked to return a payment of $50.00 to an educational publisher. My poem about dinosaurs had to be removed from a language arts… More
Accomplice
It was a treat whenever Cameron jumped on his Huffy and bicycled his way from his Barry Circle apartment complex in Bloomfield to our home in the next town… More
The Last Visit from the Girl in the Willow Tree
She took a hammer and busted a chunk of her summer just to come see me when my life was on the line, behind glass in jailhouse oranges. More
Planted in Concrete
I stood and stared at the vent on the wall above the toilet in my cell, holding a ripped piece of my sheet in my hand. I knew the… More
The Years In Between
The tall gray wall encircles fifty-five acres of land. Spired towers with narrow steel doors, loophole windows, and floodlights straddle the wall, like spines on a fearsome dragon. Rolling… More
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