life
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a letter to the dead… Hey Dad, it’s Monday again.I’m writing from where the cold snap brokeat 39 degrees, the mountains holding their breathlike a man waiting for test results.I wonder what sky you’re under now,if heaven is a temperature,a feeling of warmth after a long chill. Mom is okay. She still watches the news,gets
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Good morning, Thursday. The week is nearly over. January is already in full swing—by next week, we’ll be halfway through the month. I went to the eye doctor yesterday. Doctor M has been my optometrist for over twelve years now. It’s a comfort, walking in and not having to introduce yourself all over again. She
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A broken clock is correct twice a day. It strikes true.Its hands remain motionless.Gears, sprockets, jewels, springs—all frozen. You and me?Two pictures. The clock keeps timethe same way you and I do— twice a day,working,doing time.
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Fifty words hardly seems a story. At 57 I’m over by seven,trying to write an endingappropriate to the characters. This life made moviewhere happily ever afteris six feet below dirt— fodder for red roses to bloomwith thorns that cut deep enoughto match.
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Hey Dad!Her tiny voice—a small, blue birdat the nest’s edge.She’d remembered her way home,but her mom wasn’t there,and I hadn’t set footthere in years. Hey sweet pea, great to hear your voice.How’s work, your new place, your husband?It sounded strange—my own words,a slow fall from grace. Chirp, chirp, she went on,a new song I’d never
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It’s 3:40 in the morning, and I’ve been here before. More times now than I care to remember.I wake up maybe a little before, open my eyes, stare off into darkness and think I can make out shadows within the stark black. I bring my hands close to my face and check—I can’t see them.
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I pray I still have coffee.Find a pod.Plop and push—she percolateswarm brown juice. Grab a enameled steel mug with a handle,but make the oats in a white bowl first—microwaves and steel don’t mix.I’m sure there’s a dead cat somewherewhen I tried.Pour them in after,add blueberries and walnuts because I read they’re good for you.But blueberries
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Garth Mitchell had a crooked smile. He’d wrinkle and scrunch his nose, squint his eyes—hoped his nose was pushing down the middle of his upper lip in equal measure, making the edges rise. It was a wreck of a smile, all work and no reward. His hair went white at thirty-two, and he was quick
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The market was sliding and gold with it. If there were rules once, they weren’t working. Jack crumpled a Post-it. A buddy’s buddy said Go West Young Man in the seventh. Go West went south. Jack lost his reserve. He knew better. He didn’t. He scratched the bottoms of his front pockets—jeans worn thin at
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The head of the tornado is a wide, open mouth—swallowing clouds, light, dust,the stray wing of a passing bird.Some things fall in gently;others are ripped from their roots.Where it touches down,the finger of God stirs the world—a chaos that is also a kind of order. This house is taken, that one spared.The path seems random,unless
BB Grey--musings 