I was falling; oh ( Read more... )

The first time we salted the earth was because of science. The freezing point of dihydrogen monoxide is 32° Fahrenheit. In controlled lab situations, adding sodium chloride to water creates a saline solution whose freezing temperature is -6° Fahrenheit. Even in the uncontrollable conditions of the physical world, salt can melt ice at temperatures ( Read more... )

It's recess, and under a tree at the edge of the blacktop, we've carved a shallow bowl into the dirt ground. I duck into a small thicket, gather short sticks and bramble, rip a handful of leaves from a low bush. The dip we've made in the earth becomes a make-believe fire pit, and I'm pretending to be a servant girl, stirring ingredients into a ( Read more... )

As in its companion piece, " Let's act like we never met," all the words in this found language poem, including the title, are taken directly from LiveJournal Support requests.

Please fix this for me.Dear dude or dudette ( Read more... )

Sometimes I think I've forgotten how to talk about love. There are picnics so old I may have dreamed them, the colors bright and surreal, haze-tinted. Star-laden nights; the soft heat of comforters; his steady drum-beating heart. An everyday ecstasy (rapturously shopping for groceries, joyously organizing his bookshelves) that I remember now only ( Read more... )

She was thirteen years old, and she wanted to make things grow. She wanted to ease green shoots from the brown earth. She wanted to nurse saplings into tall, strong trees. She wanted to mold soil into a living, sculpted landscape, shape the land with her artist's hands ( Read more... )

Let's act like we never met.

For the volunteers and staff of LiveJournal Support; all words, including the title, taken directly from LiveJournal Support requests.From: The True World's Greatest Master Shooter For Billiards ( Read more... )

Tonight, in my community, there is a man who will not sleep. He has spent the day looking for his wife. Tonight, he is pouring over pictures from their wedding. He is calling hospitals. He is hoping for good news that may never come. His chest is filling with growing dread of the bad news that seems more certain with each bleakly passing hour ( Read more... )

For the rest of my life, Inauguration Day 2009 will be the standard against which I measure all other crowds. For the rest of my life, when I think about human touch, I will remember the press of bodies against bodies at the National Mall on Tuesday, Maura's hand in mine as we dragged each other through the unyielding masses of humanity trying to ( Read more... )