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Education
Please Be Patient, Student Driver
My classmates were all getting their driver’s licenses. Like any of us had anywhere important to go. They drove cars their parents had gifted them, either a hand-me-down or a brand-new lease. I was the last without a provisional license and the only one without a car parked outside Shane Yamamoto’s house.
August 2023
The Normal Force
The waiting room was mostly full of pregnant women that day, and then there were the rest of us. It made me feel sorry for the ultrasound techs, who must spend their days bouncing back and forth between rooms with babies and rooms with not babies.
July 2023
Shock Value
In general my job was predicated on my ability to suppress rage. I was an itinerant instructor, an adjunct whose career depended on good reviews from my co-instructor.
May 2023
Dating Profile
What’s on my mind lately: How to survive the winter alone with a roaming catamount who needs a snack. I asked advice from the guy who plows our driveway. “What should I do if I see it?” He stuck his head out of the truck window: “Don’t act like food.”
March 2023Ohashi Bridge In The Rain
When we met for lunch, she wore a dark silk dress and red lipstick. At the school where we both taught, she always dressed practically: plastic boots, a raincoat over a faded blue sweatshirt, a white sailor’s cap.
October 2022
Learning The Hard Way
Hitching a ride, trusting a partner, marrying the same person three times
September 2022
White Lines
We divided ourselves up until the teams were formed correctly, evenly. In other words, until the white kids were satisfied. No one had declared them the leaders, but, like most enduring traditions, the rule had become quietly understood, rooted in our fledgling muscles and minds.
July 2022Dudley Ball
The red hair and freckles, puffy cheeks / and constant perspiration amplified / his otherness. No one spoke to him. / But why do I see his face so clearly now, / the fear and loneliness in his eyes? / The faces of all the others I’ve forgotten.
July 2022Of History And Hope
We have memorized America, / how it was born and who we have been and where. / In ceremonies and silence we say the words, / telling the stories, singing the old songs. / We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
July 2022
