A roll of white athletic tape lies on a counter next to a tub of Vaseline. Red leather gloves hang from a metal hook.
Two bare light bulbs dangle through a missing ceiling tile but fail to brighten the windowless room. There is a dull shine to the cracked
vinyl cover of the trainer’s table where he sits quietly, opening and closing his immense hands balling them into fists. He begins to
throw slow punches. The room is warm, and the air is stale, and heat builds under his heavy sweatshirt. He stands and faces the
mirror that hangs by a string wrapped around a single nail. The silver backing is worn, the reflection haphazard. He is brought still
by his image. He moves closer, his face filling the round glass. He dabs a fingertip into the fleshy skin beneath each eye, then runs a
thumb along the scar imbedded in one eyebrow. The arched hairs are divided evenly between an upper and lower prominence. He
pushes his nose comically to one side, letting it snap back to settle quietly under the large bump on his nose. He stretches a smile, his
teeth clenched. The upper tier is full where some teeth are newer. There are two gaps in the lower row, and he bumps a finger
unevenly across them. A scowl for the mirror. He bounces softly on his toes. Shoulders duck and rise, the head bobs and weaves.
Jan 17
Jan 17, 2026 at 2:59 PM UTC
The stacked and layered lives of the tenements, all that intimacy bred a common knowledge. The neighbors knew that my father had
walked out on us. That he had left the apartment to pick up a newspaper on a Sunday morning and never returned. Yet only my
mother and I knew of a letter that arrived six months later.
She began to read it, then stopped and walked into the kitchen
where she turned on a burner. She held the letter for as long as she could while it flamed. And when she finally dropped it into the sink,
the black shards of ash, now lighter than air, first lifted, then floated downward into the running water. “It’s just us now.”
Jan 11
Jan 11, 2026 at 3:40 PM UTC
I take your hand, the brush askew, and I hold it in my own.
Together we find the palette, and we move to the canvas,
and there is nothing more. I am helpless. The strokes are foreign
to me, the vision incapable of forming. I cannot, yet I bear witness
to what was once so effortless for you, done without thought,
only feeling. A graceful glide, a deliberate dash, a final flourish.
They exist only in shattered memory, in brittle, diaphanous thoughts that render your gift irretrievable, leaving only the empty white.
Jan 8
Jan 8, 2026 at 10:09 AM UTC
I waited, seated behind the arched letters of the cafe window,
riveted by others who moved urgently, soundlessly, beyond
the thick glass, scurrying along glistening sidewalks,
winding between glaring headlamps in the slick night
to lovers, to friends, to family, to home.
I remember no words, only the sting of hot coffee,
a hurried gulp to stanch the welling pain and to quiet
the certain quiver of my voice if left to speak.
Yet once into the dampness, standing together for a last time
in the crystalline night, the balance is seared into hard memory
as I watched you lift a speck from my collar,
grooming me, as before, and then a smile, wistful,
and you rose on tiptoes to brush a wisp of hair from
my brow and silently, hood now raised in the misting
dark, you found the sharp corner of the red brick
building and vanished.
Sep 12, 2025
Sep 12, 2025 at 2:34 PM UTC
before he left his father's house for the last time,
he went to the kitchen where gray winter light
filled the room through a single window
he leaned over the table and smoothed his fingertips
along the wood, attempting to ****** from the soft,
sentimental pine all of the names, the numbers, that
had graced its' face, those who had drawn his
father's attention, if only for the moment, and for
a while he searched for his own name until suddenly
he withdrew his hand as if scorched, realizing some
things are better left unknown
Jul 7, 2025
Jul 7, 2025 at 4:18 PM UTC
Ten years, my tears, and his last breaths.
Wrapped in a white sheet, I carry him outside.
Later, my pick and shovel in hand.
It's hot, and the backyard weeds are tough to pull from the high ground.
The sky is iridescent blue. I wish it would rain
I swing the pick and hit dry ground.
The gray slate slab, the black painted letters poke above the tall grass.
I run my hand along the stone and whisper words only he and I can hear.
I wish it would rain.
Jun 17, 2025
Jun 17, 2025 at 3:40 PM UTC
so exciting, so fascinating, so
wholly fulfilling, so viscerally
gratifying to
think, to think deeply, to ponder
the delicate prism of our reality
and its' infinite possibilities
that one is left
giddy
Feb 25, 2024
Feb 25, 2024 at 4:11 PM UTC
in the park, the homeless stamp their feet in the cold
as the snow drifts down through the city
onto leafless trees, painting winter branches
white and still and voiceless
Jan 24, 2024
Jan 24, 2024 at 6:06 AM UTC
like the scent of crisp linens
from morning's first conscious breath,
she is life awakened
Dec 30, 2023
Dec 30, 2023 at 12:41 PM UTC
thoughts of tinsel and garland and stolen kisses under
mistletoe, of snow-covered walks, the prismed flakes
gathered garishly to glisten under the evening lamplight
of friends and family bearing cakes and drinks,
of hearty hugs and Santa hats, and toothy grins and silly
smiles of neighbors happily in their cups
the many pages since fallen from the calendar,
all shadows now, etched in their loveliest,
flawless in mind’s eye
Dec 20, 2023
Dec 20, 2023 at 3:45 PM UTC