Thief of Stars
I am the reflection of a star on the dark glass of the river just before dawn breaks.
I am the reflection of a star on the dark glass of the river just before dawn breaks.
Sometimes you are hauled backward before you can move forward; you get on a plane in the dark in Nashville and head south to Atlanta before touching down in Milwaukee where someone you love waits in the sleeting rain to drive you back and pour you into a warm, flightless bed. Sometimes the moon draws … More The Insufferable Logic of Tides
On the way home we pull off Highway 29 near Abbottsford to get gas. It’s been raining since we left Minneapolis. An Amish buggy clip clip clips into the auto parts store across the road. The horse doesn’t question, just stands there, dripping. Maybe they sell tractor parts, too; or maybe the man just wanted … More Saturday at the Abbotsford Auto Parts Store
October rain ebbs and flows and falls and falls and falls on the crooked pine trees and the roof, on the old swing set and the black driveway, on the cold, wet burn barrel and the American flag at the hundred year old house on Shady Lane where my parents live still. In the basement, … More The Disobedience of Rain
A pied-billed grebe has already paddled madly halfway across this cove (its crested head sporting a half-hearted mohawk, its body a sputtering vector moving toward the northwest, Lake Superior swollen like a too-observant eye) before I realize that it has darted out from under this porch that hangs over the water where I stand holding … More Somewhere, Another (The Pied Billed Grebe)
On the last Saturday of my 40s, I drive alone to Fish Creek to take the Sunset Bike Trail at Peninsula State Park. It occurs to me as I review the map, then fold it into small rectangles and put it into my back pocket, that if I live to be 96, it’s a decade … More 9.6 Miles in September
Overcast skies cast over / this lake, my unquiet mind / the fish dart away /
One common tern hovers high above Lake Michigan, then dives under the waves and back again, its path a ragged stitch from sky purpling like a bruise into water smooth as a mirror, and then back to sky again, pulling together heaven and earth like the closing of a weary eye.
An old house, these woods / sunlight drips through leaky trees / on the forest floor /
When I look over my shoulder to change lanes on the Leo Frigo bridge high above the bay, I see her reaching over to smooth his long hair – my son’s girlfriend – and it’s as though he’s been cracked open and I’ve seen his heart beating for the first time. It’s crowded, so we … More Night Market