Prose

I want to sing as the bird sings in anticipation of the dawn. I want to sing as the bird sings in sunlight and clear blue skies. I want to sing as the birds sings in the twilight and gloaming, under the leaden skies of impending rain and through the tempest, yet keeping my wings…

Don’t give up, America. Don’t give up. Keep trying. Don’t let them tell you it isn’t worthwhile. Don’t let them rob you of the confidence to try by telling you it isn’t as pure or fine or noble or heroic as you thought. They haven’t gone through what you’ve gone through. They’re trying to make…

“You son of a bitch.” That’s what he said. That’s what the man heard sitting at the bar. “You son of a bitch,” the kid said a second time when the man at the bar old enough to be his father didn’t respond. You don’t respond right away to son of a bitch if you’re…

Your Honor, Let’s talk about prejudice. You have in public hearing referred to the Daughters of the Confederacy as Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists and Liars and you have said it does not matter what those women say about themselves, what really matters is what you say about them. Remember they are women and you are a…

It happens everywhere. You don’t have to escape or go anywhere. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then let’s go to a perfect night. The air is sweet, not altogether wet with rain or mist but ready, moist and humid. It haunts the senses on the other side of a doorway or a…

“Do not forsake me, oh my darling.” He sang as he worked. “On this our wedding day.” He polished his truck. “Do not forsake me, oh my darling.” His pickup truck. “Wait. Wait along.” He made love to her on the hood of this pickup truck. “I do not know what fate awaits me.” He…

It’s war. The crew stood there with their shovels and rakes and the big guy walked up to the foreman and the foreman spoke first. “What’s up?” “That,” said the big guy. He pointed to a dead deer on the side of the road they were building, on the other side of a concrete barrier…

You might look around and see things that make you remember. It made him stop short. He saw it in the garage on a shelf where he kept his important tools and things he intended to use again or thought likely he would need and there he saw it, the small yellow container with a…

I come from good people. I always wanted a brother, until the day I realized if I got one he’d be a pest. That’s why this picture of my father and his brother as little boys is so funny. Dad’s wearing a play suit and a bowler sun hat turned up around the brim and…

All tools tell a story.   The tools lay before her, a hodgepodge to any other eye, but to hers and in her hands, a series of instruments worthy of any surgeon. A set of files, venerable and well used, a clamp so old it belonged in a museum, a wooden handle to fit the…