He asked and so I told him. The “cancer” poems stem from cancer in the family. Daughter’s terminal. Son’s a five-year survivor.

When Bernie wakes at 6 a.m. there’s a piano on his chest and Erroll Garner’s playing “Mist… Sinatra’s on the headboard improvising lyrics

I will no longer feed the birds on the front porch as I do daily autumn through winter when I go out at dawn to get the paper on the lawn and spread seed on

Willie has mixed emotions about homeless Syrians coming to America but his wife Millie says we should take them in.

One, a nun, has her transfer in her hand. She’s silently praying. Another, a hooker, has her income in her purse.

Better take his wife to lunch after what he said yesterday. A slip of the tongue. But where to take her? The Chinese buffet?

After the doctor tells Ahmad his test results, Ahmad says he needs a new place to live. His tent’s in ruins, Ahmad says. His body will soon shake a final t…

I have a friend, old and retired, who keeps busy helping the poor. Let’s call him Ted because he wants to remain anonymous. Some of his ideas, he says, wouldn’t make many of his neighbo...

I can’t speak for other men but as I grow older I have found listening to my wife makes life easier. So when she said we should move to a retirement community while we’re still in reaso...

The old poet has agreed to read his poems in Hanley Hall if a student will push his wheelchair on stage. Agreed. And students must agree not to ask

twenty-four houses on the same block everyone inside milling about one lost a job

They laugh at him because he’s weak by their standards but they don’t realize they’ve signed a

He remembers loving her lost in an orchard peaches, pears, apricots falling on his head every day

They are a certain way certain ladies are today no matter where they are summer, fall winter, spring even