Excerpts
"Elegy to a Young Friend" - Poem
The hidden forest rabbit gathers ghosts
To marvel at your many stolen years.
But since your voice could never stay away,
This forest sleeps through echoes of your songs
While I, your jealous turtle, strain to wake
And think of you and how your ending struck,
How once you were so soft with life. My friend,
You honest, anxious rabbit tend to bruise,
Entangle me within your hardened garden:
Now nothing, only songs to rise from ash.
If only you could do the same.
"No Signal" - Short Story
And Jeannie with the television static for hair sits in her apartment waiting for something to happen again. Illuminated in black and white, she lies upside down off the bed, picking at her fingernails.
It’s Saturday night, and while everyone else is at the bar discovering who they are, Jeannie is laying in her bed, legs sprawled out before her, toenails unpainted, and a tear or two resting on her cheek. She holds a cell phone in her hand, but there’s no connection outside her dreams.
"My Mother the Nurse" - Poem
she tells me it’s like looking through a telescope and seeing the worst side of life. like the moon, she smiles her silver smile. she knows there are far too many stars to save. she comes home sparkling in their rusty amber tints. the outcomes drip from her fingertips,
flecked with gold.
she holds endless gardens in her hands where the sparks of the ending and the violets bloom; my mother is a keeper of unanswered prayers and neglected wounds. she knows their sky is a ghost
and yet—her smile endures.