My wife likes to garden. She’s crazy about roses, lilies and daisies. She says I should get out in the garden and weed.

There’s nothing wrong with you. We both know this is true but there’s something wrong with m… and you know what that is. It’s the elephant in the room

You start by throwing things out packing things that will fit in a smaller place, selling stuff that won’t, ignoring the birds because the seed’s run out

The guillotine dropped between you and a friend over coffee and small talk. The first time it dropped it was someone who said

Millie calls the hotel at midnight to tell Willie he didn’t do anythi… It’s the way he didn’t do anything… that’s the problem because a man d… send a girl yellow roses on Valent…

Through the window I see the sun fire up for the last time today. There are jays in the trees near the meadow,

Deep in the city where the poor wait for the Second Coming suicide is uncommon. No one leaps off skyscrapers

She’s at a flower show miles away arranging roses in a vase very carefully.

When he was just a boy, they took him to the dump to scavenge, bits of metal, any food that might be eaten. When he became a man,

Departures from the norm we are. Not just you and me but

Black flag on the lawn falls in pieces from the sky. Starlings in command. Donal Mahoney

Leaves on a Japanese Maple dance auburn in the wind remind me of that mother crossing Michigan Avenue before the light changes

I turn the porch light on because it’s dark when I go out to find the morning paper. It’s still dark when I start back but when I’m on the porch I reach

Old Tim drove 600 miles back home to his shed in the woods a month after burying his wife up north in the city where they me… more than 60 years ago.

We have something in common, a fellow I talk to now and then. We’re about the same age and perhaps the only ones in the diner who think our past lives are interesting. So when the two o...