Allie Coppola
I’m in the place where words can’t reach me. I come here sometimes. When words become superfluous I return to the room with no windows and I close the door. It is underground and smells of must. It’s dark and cold and moldy. I’m allergic to it all. I cannot hear when I am told it will get better. In the dark room of the sad place, do not try to speak to me; I cannot hear your words. All I have are […]
Jim Ross
Until the doctor fixed my left ear, it couldn’t hear. The minus, was not hearing. The plus, was not hearing.
I can give you an example of a minus. I have to sleep on my right side most nights, even though sleeping on the left side is supposedly better for digestion. Sleeping on the right feels better with my back the way it is. That means that the pillow snugly embracing my downside ear (that’s the right one) muffles any noise. And the upside ear (that’s […]
Marie H Curran
I’m not sure where to begin. Ten years ago, or weeks ago.
Both were Januarys.
The January of ten years ago began with a head cold, and January 2022 began with a desire to avoid a head cold.
Ten years ago, when the then head cold rolled in and worsened, and I began struggling to stay awake at my accounting job, I ended up at my GP’s surgery. A place I wasn’t overly accustomed to. As one GP had said only weeks […]
Julie Wittes Schlack
A mobile in motion leaves an invisible wake behind it, or rather, each element leaves an individual wake behind its individual self … a slow, gentle impulse.
–Alexander Calder, 1973
Feet and knees aching like an old woman’s, I’m seated in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibit titled “Hyman Bloom: Matters of Life and Death.” It’s my first visit since my mother died.
I’d come to see the photographs in the Howard Greenberg Collection, a stunning collection of 447 […]
