An hour a day, sometimes more, I chipped away with mallet and chisel on a block of marble

A student asks the old poet why he has spent so many years writing. The old poet says no one’s asked him that before. He needs a minute to answer.

I know this story to be true because I know Ruben and he wouldn’t lie even though Ruben and I have never met. He lives in Alabama in a hollow and I live in St. Louis. But that makes no ...

Father the chameleon was lime gree… the first day I saw him peering in… my crib smiling and he remained lime green until kindergarten when a nun called the house and sa…

Little Nora and Grandpa Bill sit on swings in Grandma’s garden. A hummingbird arrives to sample the brilliant flowers at this buff… Grandpa Bill sees a teaching mome…

Heaven’s Sake or maybe Hell No. Even if we weigh a ton our body’s not a problem

In a storefront laundry on North Clark Street brown draperies release this quiet man who has my shirts.

Deep into a warm winter the Japanese red maple keeps her crown of brilliant leaves as if to prove to the evergreens especially that big blue spruce

We write the stories of our lives between the bookends of birth and death They stay on the shelf

Oliver Jones, now gray and grizzl… cut the Miller’s lawn for years.… a victim of Agent Orange, Oliver’… almost as old as the Millers, his… Recently he’s left ridges and tuft…

A long time ago you bothered him somehow. Since then he has bothered you back. You don’t know how or

A gathering of elders from the local rest home is out for a walk after dusk on canes and walkers admiring roses and lilies

You see things at the rest home you don’t expect to see. New veteran in his Korea cap is whipping everyone else in pool. He never has to bend over

The weekday Mass at 6 a.m. brings old folks out from bungalows around the church. They move like caterpillars