we ride skateboards on the edge of the street, one sneaker afraid to leave the pavement. all summer, we move through the triptych: me, legs sprawled on the carpet as we go between your sister’s room—which had the AC, the next size up for your gauges, hair dye— your bedroom—where I would draw or write […]

“And Then the Floods Came” Face masks are required for entry to most places now. The world is ending and we’re busy watching scary movies on your couch, trying to be oblivious to the worsening situation outside. The pandemic isn’t getting better. Have you checked the numbers lately? Have you checked the news? It’s not […]

Pain Pain in another’s heart is imagined  but never experienced the same.  Empathetic souls imagine  how they would feel to identify.   Others contend their pain is superior   but yours is nothing serious.  Religion declares your pain is penance; enduring it the key to salvation.  Hatred promotes this pain,  your kind should suffer for existing.  Love […]

you dress for work in straight skirt & paisley blouse. It’s camouflage, like a turtle  buried on the beach, how lost you were, newly left.  As your teen daughter, I determined not to follow you, wore men’s clothes. Why? Women are weak, get forgotten. You & I, we spun alone, separate eggs tossed in ocean […]

Lord, will those eyes become blinding?  Will those hands become terrifying fire?  Will that warm face become cosmic mystery again?  We were ready to run away to new land Our boats were rocking in the waves Our nets were miraculous for catching fish We have left behind the graves and those scowling that we find […]

Every Saturday night, cast in shadow and fog, our Crew – a Melvillian band of shadow laden pranksters – lingered curbside near a moon-shined fire hydrant.             “How many years we been submerged in America’s academic shackles?” one boy snorted and spit.             “Damn long,” another barked.             “Need out,” one said. “Need to get away.” The Crew […]

”New Home” is based in my Mexican/Spanish background and the stories I’ve heard my abuelita talk about coming from Tijuana to the Bay Area. The poem is from the viewpoint of one of her sons. My aim was to capture the contrast of the mysticism of her stories with the hardships of not knowing what […]

When I was a very young child & I heard the moog trills of the In Search Of theme music, I would run into my room & hide under my covers.  The grainy black & white images of the intro. sequence alone frightened me: a grainy row of rapa nui, a ruined Scottish castle, a crystal skull, but I […]

My mother carries an entire biography in the palms of  two small hands, each wrinkle deep  and rich with story. I listen as I  hold them in mine. Sometimes,  when I bring them close to my ear, songs of moments long forgotten ring out  into the space between us. From the sound of her bike […]

Washed Away.  Arthur Schopenhauer said: “After your death you will be what you were before your birth“. When we think of birth, we often forget to remember death. The joy of seeing new life or the prospect of new beginnings and opportunities are seldom marred by the inevitability of the end; death. Yet, the possibility […]