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He squats just inside the three long windows, cool and brown, the dog asleep, most days, in his lap. I address him as I walk through the front door, ask him about his day, smile and nod at him. I say it out loud: “Hi Dad! How’s it going?” My son looks at me like…

I thought the first calls would be the hardest. The room just silent, I called my brother, unable to say anything but his name, over and over. Next I called my friend—asked her to come though she was on her way. My daughter’s voice, soft with sleep, crumpled when I told her. Like spilled oil…

  Turn hard and long enough and your body and brain will betray you. Fluid in your ears will tell you tales different from those your clouded vision speaks. Do not let them trick you. Your eyes, your ears will do the heart’s foolish bidding. If you’re not careful, they will place you in a…

Cupped closely by the braided white netting that protects them from bruising, they squat on the shelf, awaiting her return. I’ve found just three at the market this time, each one golden, fat, and twice the size of my fist, skin speckled with pinpricks of a deeper brown. As a child she would sit patiently…

Yes, it’s cruel. An unseemly gluttony.   Trapping the ortolan buntings, forcing  them to gorge in the dark, mouthfeel of seeds   their only comfort in that closed, blank space.    Drowned in amber brandy, plucked then roasted,  their tiny bones crunch softly in the mouth.  The smallish wings tuck along smooth, browned skin,  like stiff Olympic…

Circling the edges of these rooms,  he rubs the sides of his belly,   his fisted face on every vertical   plane—each wall and table leg,   each stair spindle—pretending  not to see me. Just when I forget  to look for him, when the folds  of my brain are fat with work   or I think I’m too tired…

“Orpheus,” she cried, “what madness has destroyed my wretched self, and you?” (Eurydice, The Georgics by Virgil) Step carefully, friends. Follow close at my heels. Trust me to hold back thorny stems that scratch shins, lift low, eye-gouging branches, sidestep loose stones and muddied holes threatening Dryad ankles. Do be careful; use your hands if…

Taking my order by phone, she asks me What do you look like? So I can find you? Except that’s not how she says it. Dropping words the way my Korean mother did, still making herself understood, she waits while I decide. Pausing, as I do, as I have done since the first time someone…

Following the light, their golden faces are, by sundown, heavy and low with cares. Still, I can’t tear myself away, not now. You’d say do it, run from this bright hot porch, this lovely field of sunflowers mocking you with their likeness, with their sacrifice. Mornings they are young and fresh, their tiny florets dripping…