Leaving Okoboji
The instructor in my last workshop at the Okoboji Writers Retreat said think small but I’m living large as I drive out of town in a bright yellow Mustang convertible with the top down and Pink Floyd’s The Machine blasting out of 8 speakers because this is the first...
What Couldn’t Be
How did those massive hands, those long fingers, those large well-groomed fingernails handle such precise instruments? How did they fit into the little mouths of modest, soft-spoken townspeople, people whose mouths never spoke above their inside voices and never utter an offensive word?...
He Taught Us to Use “Joy” Wisely
The sun melts in a dark,
dry sky. The prairie
stretches deep to drink.
Trees breathe in a wicked
heat. Cicadas buzz. Redwings
chit. At last, a night breeze
cools my sweat......
The Sandwich Generation
Jim was just going to have to wait for Cliff to die, but his dad looked awful good for 90. Jim had learned everything about farming from his dad, and he’d learned how to do it right or else. Before he could walk, Cliff was showing him how to...
Princeton Arts Review – 1997: The Initiation
The Initiation: street poetry...