let them know they are worth it

aiden wanders down trails strewn with corn husks and i wonder what i’m missing. i wish my shadow was as long as his, stretching across people’s paths stopping to kiss them and squealing over them as if nothing else, no one else, for he is Jesus that way....

i was grumpy in my red-checkered shirt

he holds me, tells me he’s sorry and he smells of chalk and speed stick. and i think, ‘he shouldn’t be sorry. he did nothing wrong.’ i’d pulled potatoes from ground and carrots from stem and aiden and i, we’d made footprints in the...

on writer’s retreats and why i want to go

i am one year in this dutch town and the sunflowers are seeding, all orange and yellow like pumpkin loaf and the geese are calling, a haunted sound and i flap my arms and pretend to fly. i cut the stems of these flowering suns and i bring them inside, i bring autumn...