Playing Catch with My Dad
2015
Tossing the ball
back and forth
from hand to air to glove
The sound of it, leather
hitting leather, a satisfying thud.
An Uncommon Wedding: Eat Your Heart Out, Kate Middleton
2015
In a way, I feel sorry for Kate Middleton. She didn’t have to worry about a flooding Mississippi River dumping tons of mud on the wedding venue. Nor did she spend nights making hundreds of paper rosebuds for bouquets and centerpieces.
All That Silk and Satin Gear
2015
Springtime is the season of the Cinderella gown. My main task when helping my daughter prepare for her high school prom was to take her shopping for that one magical dress.
Upside Down
2015
Quiet and complacent; that described me in high school. A campus planning mishap catapulted me from my insular high school persona into one boisterous, self-assured college student.
Prom 1999
2015
When you asked me if I wanted to go to prom,
I was filled with excitement, until you requested
if my date could be your brother;
my 1st and last ex-boyfriend.
Osceola, Osceola
2015
We were moving to Saint Paul after a year in Ireland, all ten of us packed into a tiny Fiat station wagon for the drive from New York to a big house on an even bigger hill set on Osceola Avenue.
Van Gogh Appears at the Café Amore
2015
No chairs fly through the air tonight, no linseed oil drips from a homemade brush, no argument ensues over process, for Gauguin does not appear,
First Kiss
2015
Amid the ransacking rumble of semitrailers, we stumbled the sloped hill of Pierce Butler, the truck route near the train tracks.
A Copy Boy’s Tale
2015
It was a little before seven on the morning of June 1, 1966, when I entered the stately building at 55 East Fourth Street and hurried up the stairs.
Immigrant Status
2015
We were ice cream truck connoisseurs
And knew which Popsicles would stain our tongues.
We were rich in playground sand
And told one another, if you step on it, you’re it.
Inchworms and God
2015
When we were ten. We saw a country called Viet Nam on WCCO as we ate dinner on our TV trays from Shell Oil, but that country would go away at the turn of a knob.
I Only Wanted Chicken
2015
I always like to think about the fun one could have around the late 1960s. We could dance the night away. The clubs you could go to if you wanted to dress up or dress down.