death

I.   They had all disappeared before I arrived. Death. Distance. Disconnection. And discontent. Mother said her mum jubilated when she conceived me. But earth had taken her in, folding…

Dear Uncle R., Here’s what the stories have told me: you died in 1987 at home, not in Vietnam. I was born in 1990. My coworker—an army reserve who saw…

Too happy Time dissolves itself And leaves no remnant by – ‘Tis Anguish not a Feather hath Or too much weight to fly – —Emily Dickinson   Not long into…

My dog sees the gull before I do. She strains at the leash, pulling toward the shifting grey shape, which becomes a filthy bundle of feathers, which becomes an injured…

Text Message Exchange on December 20th: Alexandra: I think I found an actual photo of Finn cheating on you in June. Maya follows Finn on Instagram, it was not hard…

People were curious and wanted to see something rare—a great black hawk from Mexico with legs so long that it hunted squirrels by running them down. Bird lovers drove in…

I wouldn’t walk away from my mother’s dead body. After my sisters and I had washed her breasts, belly, arms, and smoothed scented cream over her soft, soft papery skin,…

Image Credit: Brett Jordan via Unsplash   One Sunday evening, I tucked myself into bed earlier than usual with the intention of getting a long night’s rest before the busy…

Image Credit: Megan Perra   You’ve probably heard this one before. When I was six years old, my father left our family. He left Virginia for Florida, weaved in and…

Image: Thom Steinbeck and the author, Diana Raab   When we think of suicide, we usually think of it as a sudden, contemplated, or premeditated act. We rarely regard it…

* * * One Santa Clara summer day, in my apartment, the stone cat stared at a plastic rose against a sky so white the window seemed to fog. And…

Image Credit: Dev Murphy   My mother called me last week to tell me she had dreamed of her sister Christy’s trip to the hospital before it happened. Minor illness.…

I pick up the flat fledgling looking for the fall in purple fluid swell filling transparent cranium, dark blue blooming under the pink sheer of skin, so thin. There’s no…

After my mother didn’t wake up; after the snow drifted down to mix with dirt like cream as the gravediggers heaped earth atop her casket; after the drive home to…