Articles

————–Not the branches we cut each ————–windy March to hang with eggs ————–dyed red. Not those ————–we bless with palms ————–& smoke. These arced ————–spines & split limbs bud ————–through straining bark. Backs ————–humped & bent, bound. Does ————–God suffer these husked ————–velvet knobs? Stunted, ————–a wreath of tumors. ————–Yes, he does. Gather them ————–for…

I’d like to scale the cord in the vibrating dark, to find the source of all sound, to translate the frequencies. The way, as a child, I could hang onto a knot of rope and kick myself back from a wall into the arc and blur of summer air—that’s the prayer I want. To open…

ACROSS THE HIGHWAY are a Taco Bell, a Comfort Inn, and a free-standing building that houses a Chinese buffet. A Case tractor company is nearby, and what looks to be an old service station, deserted, with orange-and-tan panels on the garage door and wild grass sprouting through the asphalt. Somewhat disconcerting is an abandoned Wal-Mart, a…

It didn’t help that the boys are Jewish, and the stone angels only clumsy halfway- hoverers, not as smart as electrons, quarks, or strings that turn like dazed rubber bands in a breeze. It didn’t help that we’d walked all over Paris first. Still, the rose window entered them: a complication, a shattering of light.…

LATE AT NIGHT I walk the streets of my hometown, my hands stuffed deep in the pockets of my leather jacket to ward off the winter chill, and dream of superstardom. By this time I figured I’d have written the great American novel, worked on the Hollywood screenplay, and consulted with DeNiro and Streep on how…

In fields where the late light lingers I can just see the last wild roses spangling the vetch and Johnson grass. Is someone walking there, bending to take in their lightest breath? Is it a girl in a blue-white dress? Even now the moon is rising like a blade above the hills. Sharp cries of…

Nevertheless, the rain continued. In dark doorways and under loading docks men slept with cardboard and cold. I said, “My heart is full with praising your justice.” Still, the sniper drew in a long terrible breath—or so I understand. I said I was lonely for my old body and my body became older still. I…

IT STARTED with a phone call. “Sweet D, I’m coming to California. I want to interview you for my new book.” Nobody ever called me “Sweet” except my Davidson College roommate, John Marks. Evidently he was on the prowl, in search of his next story. I was intrigued. “Why me?” I asked him. “Because you…

Like one nation divided, the older—by three minutes—bragged: We had a race, and I won. The younger would respond: We had a fight. I kicked him out. Impossible to tell them apart— in photos, in home movies— hairy and smooth in equal measures, matching clothes, thin bodies, freckled, blue eyes behind black-framed glasses— as babies,…

At the Synagogue Rummage Sale during Holocaust Remembrance Day Basement, Butler, Pennsylvania, the gentiles bargaining for old tallises, worn yarmulkes, a torn challah cover, a stained torah, a hundred thumbed copies of Anne Frank— I walk out and past a circle of bat mitzvah-aged girls and our rabbi, who stops me and asks if I’ll…