I started reading the paper early in grammar school to find the sports scores. It was fun for a child hoping to play
July in the streets of Mexico City: One of the women one never would marry. One of the women one sees
It’s a matter of beans, says Rosie, 79, legally blind, her fingers dancing across a Bible in braille, when a reporter asks her about
Both of them had been to Korea. Both of them had made it back. One found a job
A gathering of elders from the local rest home is out for a walk after dusk on canes and walkers admiring roses and lilies
Harvey at 80 is losing his hearing. He can’t hear his wife when she talks, a symphony lost.
Sometimes you sit for days sucking yourself in praying the right words will fall in your ear toboggan over the whorls
In the fourth grade too many moons ago a reassuring teacher looked over my shoulder and said not to worry about
Everyone who has money should drop it in a vat and anyone who needs money should take what they need a Swede, a Dane and two
When Martha gets home from cooking class this afternoon, Martin will be gone after 30 years of marriage. Martha won’t know why
She was old already when you had her in 8th grade and she said you should sit in the first seat third row right in front of her for
A friend in England rings me up and we talk about this and that. He asks if my president’s in touch with all that’s going on and I say he should be in touch, going to
The soup kitchen opens an hour late. The rain finally stops and the hungry file in. They’ve had a long wait.
A bright winter day and not a leaf left on this skeleton tree teeming with sparrows
Every time we have a big election in America, my wife of many years asks me if I’m going to vote in the primary although she knows I never do because one has to decl…