I. At some point, it became irrelevant to teach little boys how to tie a horse’s harness to a tree after a morning ride as it will become irrelevant, yet possibly charming to tell analog time, and write in cursive, and develop 35 mm film (these things yet in my lifetime). There was, there will … More In Dreaming Stray
That night it was snowing like crazy but we left the kitchen in disarray to pick her up and we drove through half-deserted white billowed streets to see the pretty lights at the botanical gardens I walked ahead so you could stroll alone with her through the winter night lit by imagined dragons, undersea creatures, … More Holding Fire
At Linneman’s RiverWest with McKenzie, my firstborn, who is somehow of age, beautiful, and strong, despite it all – we’re just one drink in, waiting for her boyfriend Zach to play, when I hit the ladies’ room — “I’m comin’ out!” the lady in the half-open stall shouts and so I pee behind the imperfectly … More Linneman’s
While waiting for the Percoset to kick in, and the Spinal to bid goodbye, (thus far I can tense the muscles in my right thigh, only), so I can walk, and pee, and get home, and while trying to breathe out in a hiss through the cramping of my missing womb, (though to be clear … More Wee Thing
Something about seeing your skull in black and white and pulled nonchalantly from the manila folder makes me feel loose inside as though all of my bones have let go of each other for the moment, and are floating around unmoored in my limbs, my chest. The skull is death, it’s for pirates, and archaeologists, … More Braces
My big brother is not like a river, ever-changing, moody, bringing you along in his current – he is a river, the Menominee, and despite his full-time job keeping Wisconsin and Michigan in their places, he has also pulled and tangled my hair, has stolen my towels, sunglasses, one cell phone, several shirts, flip-flops, and … More Fighting with My Brother the River
Either it comes to you Or you go to it; nevertheless You meet. Highway 139 weaves southward after your day of skiing; a newly teenaged girl watches a screen in the back, playing a movie meant for her younger self – the older brother left behind at the friends’ cabin, the eldest sister in a … More Drifting
Maybe he’s driving the Jeep through the Vietnamese jungle strewn with tents and men trying to dry their socks and men trying to get the cigarette to light and men trying to tune in the radio signal and men trying to find the words to write a letter and trying most of all not to … More Inheritance
And shining in the green field As though they are just-painted models In someone’s miniature world, Set just So as We fly down 577 while Sun and rain leapfrog over each other, Empty houses, fallow fields, A woman pulling weeds In a rectangular patch Reclaimed from the wild, Destined for the wild In 40 years … More Black Horses Wet
i. Porterfield Elementary jutted like a brick mole on the inside bicep of Highway E, just down from where Roberta’s dad sold tractors to the flannelled German, Norwegian, and Polish farmers digging up the rocky soil around us. Here I would learn subtraction from zero, borrowing a ten from the neighbor number like … More Subtext
Halfway North 