[Fiction, exercise, maybe the start of a short story.] I left no part behind when I told him exactly how I felt. How he could do more around the house--would it kill him to make a bed. Romance. Gone long…

I knew how to make poetry—if not happen—then at least be meaningful to students. I liked teaching poetry: lyric vs. narrative, the sounds and their names, the rhythms—called meter in poetry. For the latter I would use children’s poems—an early…

I dream of retiring from my legal word processing job and working as a writer instead. While off work for 14 weeks of disability for thumb joint replacement surgery, I did endure quite a bit of pain and recovery. You'd…

To sleep out in the cold. With the Ami’s calling in Germany’s loans, credit tightened. Industry contracted. Businesses failed. Millions of Germans lost their jobs. Men failed to provide basic necessities for their families. They could no longer pay rent.…

When I graduated from college, there was no advice line, wise family or friends to help me answer the question, ““What will you do now?” In our family, there were plenty of smart people, but I was only the second…

There is no Me in family. Only I. i heard this in a movie once and laughed. i don't know why. me thinks there's an irony here, but i don't know what it is. i keep thinking, always thinking. but…

“Sometimes I think I just dreamt him up! I can hardly remember him. Odd, huh?” My niece sits across from me at an outdoor dining table in Rockridge. Well, she’s not really my niece; she’s my husband’s niece, but I…

[Fiction] "This is just not working out anymore." He has the good sense not to text his goodbyes, but to arrange for us to meet at a nice restaurant. A casual place, bright, bustling, without hidden meanings. After three years,…

“Out of my dreams and into your arms I long to fly…..I will come as evening comes to woo a waiting sky!”…….as that lush yearning waltz goes, from that classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical about statehood and beautiful mornings. However,…

My phone pinged when I stood in the rain in the woods, my daughter Megan who lives in LA now. “Mommy, where are you? “In the woods. It’s wet and cold here.” “Guinness is there with you, say hi to…

I know you are reading this. Actually, I can see you reading, see you through the window behind the building of your condo. Your lovely condo. You will go to that window shortly, and pull back the drape to see…

We turned each other into liars. Agatha had such high hopes for her second marriage. The first time she married, she was so young. The love she shared with Ernst was like a fire, small at first then roaring and…