Its slender handle a swan neck over the tub, like a low bird or amphibian that lives to peer, to lurk, to sleep. Its electric umbilicus rooted to the wall. As with a new infant, its head is oblong,

In the bathroom when I cannot find the light switch, I do not call out Bloody Mary. Instead, I say Santa Claus three times. Sitting at the computer, instead of reading Webmd like the old me, I learn about Bigfoot and believe everything. Brooding can be fun

My summer school course in arson has gone well. Twelve students planning their final projects. I’ve set only a couple of rules. They aren’t allowed to burn the school, and can’t use gasoline because it leaves such obvious traces.

We’re walking on a path through Ingapirca— Cañari ruins crowned by Inca remnants—when we notice below, on a sweeping green plain, a llama giving birth. The birth, like most, was improbable and awkward— a wet messy success producing a

Sunlight spirals out from a confusion of tag elder crowding the edges of this narrow expanse, a slow succession of species in the landscape—changes, changes— is this renewal? In the felt heat of midday, dragonflies swim light, splash in

On remote Norton Island off the coast of Maine less than a month after my father died the moon has yet to practice this particular loss I must have seen it quartered like this before, but this waning after

The sand sloshes beneath his boots, lacking the satisfying crunch of childhood memory, a youth shaped by churning tides demarking a terrain too bitterly humid for daytime habitation. As the town grew increasingly nocturnal, his parents ventured out only

It is difficult to catch your breath when you are always on the move. During the daylight hours, I navigate an endless parade of faces, offering up firm handshakes with bright smiles. I am a perpetual traveler, greeting, meeting,

Dimly lit by moonlight, the painting rests uneasily on the floor where he crouches to examine its brash swirling colors, mixing, if not in complete harmony, then in anticipation of some unifying melody yet unheard. Captivated by the picture’s