Precious Resources

Polly goes upstairs for a nap, falls asleep and wakes fuzzy; thinks someone’s stealing her little dog, the dearest thing to her. Puts the dog, Max, in the closet, calls 911 and they all come. Firetrucks, police. The sheriff calls me on her phone, “I want to verify...

Pain & Beauty

This weekend, preparing for Small Stories (for various sized) People class I thought: That which is broken, disfigured, ruined, can’t stop there. We’ve been reading pieces that are fractured and fragmented, about trauma. And we’re in this time of difficulty.  But then...

A Promise

When I was in the hospital, four months ago today, I was lying face up in my hospital bed looking at two things, a white board with various names and numbers written and erased on it, and above the white board,a large clock. I could also see the door to the right...

Freestyle

In the story the mermaid meets up with a fisherman a few times. The wish for her to be on land with actual legs is granted. Initially it works out for them, but the trouble is, with each step she feels sharp pains, like stepping on knives. She longs for the sea. She’s...

A Crutch

I reach up, open the screen door, and slide the stop flap in place. The gesture is a clue for the dogs that it’s time to come inside. But since my fracture they know I’m slower, and care less if they’re in or out. And they’re timid. The crutches are strange. New...

(Standing) In Place

                                                                              Sittin’ on a pin, too tired to get up                                                                                                                      Johnny Watson   I’m standing, after...

The Barrow Poem

  Out my window it’s raining and if I were to walk outside I would be in the rain, and I think of the short poem by William Carlos Williams, that you probably know. I wondered why the word barrow was separated out in the poem, from wheel. I only now discovered barrow...

We (the people)

In South India in February, March and April 1997 we kept our hands off banisters when we visited friends in the Metropole Hotel and didn’t hold onto railings of rickshaws. We stopped sticking our fingers in our mouths and washed our mangos, papayas and bananas before...

Katharine Kaufman

Katharine Kaufman

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