Sitting on a cot in the emergency room, I filled out paperwork certifying myself as the responsible party for my own medical care—signed it without looking, anchoring myself to this debt, a stone dropped in the middle of a stream.
Last summer, I traveled to Northern Virginia to attend the fortieth reunion of my high-school class. As I entered the hotel ballroom and surveyed the scene, a couple of questions inevitably came to mind: “Who are all these old people?”...
One still morning in a high, hushed village on that green island of cypress and pine, sun-beat oak and rock, from a rooftop whose loose tiles dislodge from my careless steps
I’ve fluttered around the edge of cliques, pressed my beak against the bars, not in envy, but out of interest, and for the little warm glow they give off.
