Once, sitting in my parent's kitchen, I watched a mouse drag itself across the floor. It was folded in half; a mouse trap scraped along behind it.

We watched a honey bee bustle about on a clover with fervent ambition. She was a young one; Small. She plunged her head so deep in the petals that the smallest of flowers almost swallowed her up. Pulsing thorax, kicking legs, and periodically buzzing wings led me to think it was an especially delightful nectar deposit. Worth it. I walk through this yard every day. Getting the kids to school. Getting myself to work. Picking up groceries. Going on a walk. Cutting the grass. Garbage day.

I heard once that people in India protect themselves from Tigers by wearing masks on the back of their head when walking through the jungle. Tigers only attack if they think you can't see them coming, they say. I must have thought I was going to need that information some day because I still remember it over fifteen years later. I have not yet been to India, and I've not yet been stalked by a tiger. At least, I assume so; I've never worn a mask on the back of my head.

The first time I went to church was probably at a construction site. I was a laborer. The minister had a face that looked like the gnarled bark of a very old tree. He was the lead carpenter and I don’t think he liked me very much. Understandable: I barely knew how to hold a hammer. The eucharist was a horribly dry peanut butter and jam sandwich. Blood of Christ, jellied for you. The cathedral was a cold and wet, freshly framed bunkie on the side of a cliff. The incense was a mason’s sog...

Perhaps the burden of existence is such only because we demand it to be something it is not

I'm doing it again Sweet, gentle 'thank you's delicately whispered to crisp winter air Breath forms a steamy incense as it passes through my lips Always I come back to this Though I am less and less sure how it works

Of Sisyphus and Interpretive Dance and Laundry

He mistook his dwindling daysFor THE end of daysAnd who could blame him?Death is a frightful mysteryMuch easier to face itIf all you leav...

I did not ask to be hereDid not call a counsel of the GodsRequesting placement on this planetI did not beg to be bornHoping Zeus would he...

Give me an eternity in hellLet me sing with the drunkards and smoke with the vagrantsGive me an eternity with the queer and transgenderTh...