Blog : Beautiful-Things
Powerless

Our off-the-grid neighbors say that they know when the power has gone out because a chorus of hums rises from the generators in the valley. Now, our house has joined that choir....
Life Science

You taught me, once, about the Swainson's thrush—its call like an invitation to another world: a swirling up of sound, unseen. Teach me the names of all the birds you know, and how they sing....
Back Aisles (repeat)

The library building was my body like your children are your body, like your spouse is your body. Its wood and glass grew out of my chest. It came with a key and code.Â
Mosque/Musk

I want to tell you that the word 'musk' comes to us from the Sanskrit mushkas, meaning 'testicle,' testimony to source in the aromatic abdominal sacs of musk deer....
Say When, Say It Louder

You pinned me to the basketball court in the middle of gym class while Mrs. Thompson was busy tending to a "situation" in the locker room, or off fetching ice from the cafeteria....
Ghost Sigh

I survey the elegant glass skyline crowded on the tray: the fine-boned Chanel, curvy Burberry, sleek Cabochard. The bottles display various levels of fragrant amber liquid, belying their owner’s favor. Each has its unique cap or stopper, competing like fancy hats at the Derby....
Forced Quince, as Study

The way, on the fourth day, the sepals' little leaflets, grown twice yesterday's size to a fourth inch, have curled back–like legs spread or backs arched—from the buds, and....
Pooled in Ripples

I wasn't like the other 22-year-olds after you, carelessly wearing bright bikinis. I was too preoccupied with how I looked suddenly: child bearing hips, a soft middle....
Miracle at Delancey Street

My drive to the Delancey Street Christmas Tree lot begins on snowy roads through a canyon hemmed by pinion and sage studded cliffs and the icy Rio Grande....
Hair and Nails

Jen was so venomous that I stopped having my students read their journal entries aloud. She said such cutting things unsolicited. She made a student cry just by staring at him....
Standoff at Wolf Creek

I tell Cory "no" again. I can't help him resurrect dinosaurs using chicken eggs, even if I am impressed that an eight-year-old already knows so much about genetics and paleontology....
When and How

1) A tent flap When the zipper teeth cut the air, filling the tent, humid from a night of bodies letting out breath after breath....
First Flight

My first memory is a lie: I am a baby, flying around the living room....
Eighteen, Both of Us

And still unkissed. Blame it on our strict Christian homes, the rules at the Bible school we were attending, guilt, or just plain old nerves....
Correction

I am correcting your typos (fallow becoming follow, gooing becoming going), correcting the interesting but incorrect with the boring and banal because what you meant was boring and banal....
Art Lesson (repeat)

They saved it for Fridays. Every teacher had the same projects. Fall: iron leaves between waxed paper. Winter: chalk snow scenes on black construction paper. Spring: draw daffodils. Except for Miss Malik. She was young, pretty, and not a nun....
The Day to Day (repeat)

Sifting the flour. Squeezing the lever once. And then waiting. For a moment, it is winter again. I take my finger and make snow angels in the little blue bowl. After you died, they said the only thing to do was keep on living....
Maps

Dr. A, my mother's handsome Bolivian neurosurgeon, lost his father on Everest. I pictured whorls of snow, a crumpled map and a man, stepping into thin air....
Window Vent

You take me for a ride in a sixties Oldsmobile. The radio doesn't work and you had to put additive in the gas....
Late

You hoped she wouldn't show up today, the student who scares you. She in her crop tops and lace-up tanks, her camis with labels like Juicy or Nasty Gal that stick up between her thick shoulder blades....
My Grandmother's Pie Plate

I'm the one filling it now, and I've never minded sugar under my fingernails less. Its surface is dark with shine; it's been swallowing butter and heat for two lifetimes at least....
The Band Reunited and We All Bought Tickets

Praise God for a venue with a parking lot....
Vantage Point

Some boys found a little brown bat in the parking lot outside the surgeon's office. Delicate as a tea bag, they poked it with a stick, kicked it....
A Grandmother Listens

She is a bird in song with whole consonants flying out of the cave of her tiny mouth, the tones airborne like a floating leaf. She hands me a block, and with it comes language not yet molded into comprehension, but so sweet, that I listen carefully like one does on a forest walk....
A Total Solar Eclipse Is Visible from Any Given Point on Earth Once Every 375 Years, on Average

We'd gone to the lake to watch. We had the special glasses, and I toggled between gaping at the razor-precise disappearing of the sun and looking down at my children to make sure they both had their glasses properly affixed.
Away and Away, Then To: A Memoir

The placenta blocked my exit. I was lifted from my mother just in time. London, 1968—bound for my father's USA. The month between Martin and Bobby; I imagine everyone sad.
In Answer to Fire

For a long time, we could not go back. But once we were done averting our eyes, once we had mourned and banished all smoldering thoughts about the tribe of blackened trees replacing the known world for now and another season, and the last long fingers of smoke were ushered out by wind, a ticking began....
Walking

I do not want to be naked. The thought consumes me to the point of obsession. As we crunch across the luminous blue-gray glacier, as we delicately spear a rack of the best lamb I've ever had in my life, as we drive for hours in the liquid darkness searching for the northern lights, my mind churns over scenarios....
Visitation (rerun)

On the porch, under a Blood Moon, our fire is dying down, so we wear wool blankets over our shoulders. We're drinking cider warmed in a pan on the stove, splashed into mugs with whiskey....
Interruptions (rerun)

Seek stillness. Close your eyes, relax in the lotus position, and breathe deeply. But hold on tight. Search every corner of the cosmos and you find only a universe in motion....