A new year opens before her as blank as the paper on her desk. Picking up a blue, ballpoint pen she writes her resolutions. “There is nothing important happening, nothing…
In the short, six-hour day, the sunlight fades by mid-afternoon in the sitting room where Silvia is trimming the Christmas tree. Beautiful and majestic, it stands over twelve-feet high. Starting…
At first, my phone call was harbored with deep suspicion. Why, the interest? She didn’t have time right now. She had nothing to say, even as she told me she…
A tri-fold conceals the words while revealing the force of a typewriter: bold abstracted letters raised in reverse. Unfolding the letter, I find the date, a year before my birth,…
It was his name, Henrik Visnapuu that came up in those first Google searches at the late-night, kitchen table, linking Silvia to a larger world unknown to me; a world…
It's a dusty roll of flimsy cardboard, with yellowed ragged paper poking out it's ends, resembling something akin to an old-fashioned, confetti cracker from a party long past. Anyone could…
When winter's grasp is released in bedlam streams, and sap enlivens naked trees, a breath of warmth tames feral winds, and birdsong includes new notes that quicken the pulse of…
On a stone bench, set back slightly from the bustle of the street, rests an old woman reading a three-cent newspaper. Unaccustomed to the liquid warmth of spring light, the…
If I close my eyes, I see an overwhelmed little girl, hair disheveled, sitting on the floor, in the middle of a messy bedroom. From the great distance of time,…
Today is the third of November and the third anniversary of Silvia's death. This morning, I light a slender white candle for Silvia at my desk, watching its bright flame rising…
