In my all-boys school sixty years ago there were two boys who were different. All four years they walked to classes together, books

It’s a small backyard I’ve watched for years from an upstairs window while chained to a computer. Whatever the weather

In St. Louis young blacks carry guns like cell phones and use them often to shoot each other, as we read in the daily paper

We are to each other now many decades later what we were the day we got married, a couple at the kitchen table on

It wasn’t long after her mother died my wife asked if her father could live with us. We had an empty apartment upstairs. Dad wouldn’t be much trouble, she said. He was old now and had d...

It used to bother me to see odd people leapfrog parking meters and shout every day is Halloween until

Martin, a very senior citizen, wants to get a bucket and knife and go hunt up some greens in a field in Alabama. But in spite of his yearnings for a big bowl of greens, he knows his wif...

In a long marriage couples communicate in so many ways, often in silence. In recent years I rise very early and now leave post-it notes

The problem doesn’t lie in not knowing. It lies in our not seeking him because when we die we meet him and we’re blinded by

Granny watches nature in the city from her window after the nurse takes her tray away. She likes to watch the bird feeder grandson Ahmad hung for cardinals,

We worry so much because we’re nice people. We want to find a way to feed the poor house the poor

When you’re a pharmacist you don’t ask customers how they’re doing. You know from the meds they pick up

These are old people retired and driving slowly from small apartments in economy cars getting out on canes

Melanie cried for hours the day a drunk driver ran over her dog a week after she had an abortion. She loved that dog so much she told her mother she knew

He lives at the edge of a forest and loves all the different trees. He comes to the city for food and basic necessities. He hates the long drive