Ghost Parachute

They picked wildflowers that day. Near the split rail fence at the edge of the property. Two sisters, palms left sticky with pollen from thin velvet stalks. Chins buttery yellow from pressed petals, eyes open wide with curiosity. The adults were all in town at a fancy party, all except for Grandma who slumped dozing […]

That in three centuries, men have never surprised her, That the river tastes alive, that she can separate every raindrop that ever splashed into its bowl, can determine the origin of every sodium scented drip, that she can feel the stutter of the frog’s heartbeat upstream, sense the swift thrash of salmon tails, breathe the […]

The summer we divorce, the annual Perseid shower peaks on your birthday, and I lay in my yard, my clothing damp with dew, stare up at the sky the way we did that time we went camping on the island, that time our boys attached glow-in-the-dark bracelets to the bikes we’d just removed their training wheels […]

The t-shirt I pulled out of the free pile was soft and faded black and once belonged to what must have been the best smelling human on Earth. It threw up a cloud of dust as I shook it out on the sunlit porch and stopped. I suddenly understood why dogs have a compulsion to […]

In October, a few weeks after I’d started eighth grade, my mother shot my father’s lawn six times, her aim sweeping from left to right as if she was drawing a line. “God damn you,” she said before each shot. She was sure my father was inside the house because his car was parked in […]

My sister is a Himalayan salt lamp. Hewn from the mountains of Pakistan, she emits a pinky-orange glow, a sunset a shepherd would delight in. I’ve never been into crystals and new-age therapies but I respect the contribution she makes to the interior design of my log-cabin hideaway. She claims to be able to help […]