I’m an old man now, but I was a boy once, and I saw things—adults with backward rollercoaster eyes, muddy backhoe faces, steel wool fingers, javelin forearms that could tack anything they wanted to a wall, a floorboard, a bed board, or a rusty bedspring creaking for rescue. I was a glass boy then, blown […]
childhood
The Thing About Clowns
A long time ago, I had an imaginary friend who was a clown. Then he shape-shifted into a ghost, then into my parents, then into a gaggle of coiled cobras that happened to look and act a lot like my parents. But first he was a clown. His makeup ran and his tongue tended to […]
Rest Here
Wind, power, speed; we zoom up the mountain to the place that prints the papers, where you can get The Wall Street Journal early. I love the orange motorcycle the way other girls love ponies. At three, I have my own helmet and know to hold on tight, but I must not be holding tight […]