Sonia is from the sandbox, from Cabbage Patch dolls and sidewalk chalk. She’s from the cul-de-sec where she rode her pink bike around and around in spring break rain. She’s from camping and reading along with taped storybooks, under the slanting canvas of the tent trailer. Sonia is from strong coffee and getting up early… Continue reading Where Sonia is From
Born a common spark baby tongue creeps, crawls nibbles grasses, needles, twigs. Lambent cub egged on by wind. runs and leaps, laughs and licks. Hungry adolescent hunts smorgasbord of pine, hemlock, fir belches plumes of caustic smoke. Suffocating scent stampedes forest creatures to the glittering river sends wild-eyed homeowners in 4x4s loaded with papers, photos,… Continue reading Forest Usurper
We did not know our old house had such lovely bones until we put her on a diet. All her flab from furniture to knickknacks trimmed. Frumpy wardrobe of linoleum replaced. A facelift of paint took years off dinged and battered walls. Finally we coifed her with a new roof. Now svelte and chic she's… Continue reading Makeover
It is just like God to send you on ahead. Now we can hardly wait to walk up the geranium-lined path to your mansion. On the way inside you will steer us past your garden point out the gargantuan beefsteak tomatoes bushes heavy with raspberries field of cucumbers huge heads of cabbage perfect for sauerkraut.… Continue reading Mom Nesdoly
Beside my face glowing, red – 11:58 ...11:59 I stare into the dark. Somewhere a train whistle blows sharp, short. Sirens wail, then fade. Dog barks. Car vrooms a challenge, squeals, roars on but my tensed body pleads for that familiar hum... then door slam, click, step, step, creak, the sweet sound of teenage feet...… Continue reading Stare into the dark
I can think a thing a long time with the words going round and round inside my head like the gray gruel mixing in a cement truck but once I say those thoughts once those words escape my mouth pour out become exposed to air everything changes. The minute they're out they start to solidify.… Continue reading Some Words
From the first burp of a shoot bursting its tomb to the dozing off of a harvested plant life remains a mystery. There is significance in small things: the subterranean wisdom of earthworms the collegial hum of bees the fantasies of the cabbage grub the silent plodding of beetles and how ants and aphids conspire.… Continue reading Wisdom of the Scarecrow
"Communion Service, next Sunday morning at 10:00," church bulletin said. I imagined sitting there, wafer and tiny goblet of juice in hand trying hard not to think of what I'll make for lunch. It wasn't even a prayer, just a thought I wish it had more meaning for me again. Early Communion Sunday morning the… Continue reading Communion
I am in the choice of pattern and in my fantasy of how the suit sketched in tweed will be incarnated in velvet I am in tissue pieces laid precisely, pinned snugly facing the right way on the wrong side. I am in the concentration of my tongue and in the rhythm of my heart… Continue reading In stitches
I dig through just-arrived groceries for Cracker Jack and Pink Elephant Popcorn hold cinnamon hearts tight with my tongue till my mouth is on fire pick sweating Smarties and licorice shoelaces off the icing of my cake sift through green cellophane straw to find the last chocolate egg gobble a bag of jujubes at the… Continue reading Candy Year
Violet Nesdoly 