The boy sitting at the piano is seven.  He is wearing pajamas and swinging his feet.   Above him is a poster of a mountain village we bought before he was born, when we were still a couple, waiting uneasily for our first child together.  It was dicey for a…

I’m walking beside them in Pompeii. We’re tourists of course.  I’m thirteen, big lips, blue blazer, man’s trench coat, pair of beginner balls dangling. Every so often, kneeling to touch the ground, I pick something up — keys, coins, a ticket to the locker my mother keeps her superstitions in.What’re…

From beneath the mist I see a yellow candle by the bed flicker. . A voice whispers forget about accounting for what is and just be. . Everything I wished for once disappeared in the night like a giant freighter down a river of longing toward the horizon. . All…

Ripening, by Wendell Berry The longer we are together the larger death grows around us. How many we know by now who are dead! We, who were young, now count the cost of having been. And yet as we know the dead we grow familiar with the world. We, who…

I met the Bishop on the road And much said he and I. ‘Those breasts are flat and fallen now, Those veins must soon be dry; Live in a heavenly mansion, Not in some foul sty.’ ‘Fair and foul are near of kin, And fair needs foul,’ I cried. ‘My…

Dear Abby: My father is a businessman who travels. Each time he returns from one of his trips, his shoes and trousers are covered with blood — but he never forgets to bring me a nice present; Should I say something? Signed, America.