On:

My mother worries onebone in her body like the windwarps a grain field. It is the glowingmetal rod in her left shin — the poetry dowsing rod. At night she sleeps stilland the rod points up to her blood-pumping heart, twice out, years longto work, still — and glows blueContinue Reading

On:

She struggles to breathe in the icy air,gulping trouble and guile from voicesnot her own. She has learned to skate betweendazzlers and blunderers on the gridlockedcity rink, ankles burning with intent andtentative discovery of the sweetspot for equipoise, remaining mostly upright,steering into a valiant glide, knowinga fall is imminent, inescapablewhenContinue Reading

On:

I can buy two comics for a quarterat the druggist near the department storenext to the restaurant where we eat outalmost every Friday night. ’66it is, and I’m just ten; my allowanceis twenty-five cents a week. I blow iton superheroes. I’m a good student,bring home A’s and B’s, and amContinue Reading

On:

This day limps and whimpersin a sudden mob of jeers and taunts.Remorse muscles in, blockingthe tease of possible lightwith a fuggy pulse of wayward,gravel-blind, monstrous self-absorption. This is the end of the worldand only imps and devils are afoot,the wrecks beset by iron-hearted lootersstealing movement from the air, invitinga tepidContinue Reading

On:

I stretch for the comic book at the topof the spinner rack but I can’t reach it–I’m too small and my heroes are too high.I don’t think about what that means then but,forty-three years later, it all makes senseand would make a good comic book, too, ifI could pencil andContinue Reading

On:

There’s a story in this, girls,and it doesn’t have any wolves in it for now, though you never knowwhat might come down the lane, in Neverland, especially nearthat mermaid bog of old. Which is the gateway toThemyscira, truth be told, though no one ever seemsto want to know where theContinue Reading

On:

I watched the groupie dress. The cool light slipping in the tour bus window ignited her magenta hair in a halo of color. I watched the dark line of her jeans slide over the curve of her hips to just above the line of her skimpy thong and thought aboutContinue Reading

On:

II. One way of looking at itSever the notion of quest from bloodand you get girls, leastways if the bloodis othered and the quest is sticky withswords and snares, beset with spitefulnymphs and pitiless trials, fool’s goldguarded by dragon-fire, the road toilluminant decency – or what passes as –marked byContinue Reading

On:

The Neighborhood Watch was four people. I was one of those four people. I, like you or your mom, get up every morning and pull on my pants. I sit on the toilet. I brush my teeth. They call me The Tamer, or Toni, the Tamer. The joke is notContinue Reading

On:

When I slam on the brakes,I plunge headlong intoa proverbial brick wall,nothing is the same. My figure sprawls on the groundstunned, unable to accessmy abilities. I submit my bodyto rigorous testingto locate my Achilles’ heel. All these testsand treatmentsdo not empower me,improve function. I am weak, curledin the fetal positionContinue Reading