It is, indeed, okayto say I love you.We say it in so many ways, verbalised or not. I'm so sorry for your loss. Please know that you're not alone,and although no one can walk your journey,our concentric human ripples overlap. Know that it's okay to grieve.Know that sometimes it will be awful,and that's okay.Sometimes it will be better,and that's okay too.Be prepared that it may get worse,when shock removes its anaesthesia,...

It's early morning the day before Thanksgiving. There came about 8 more inches of snow overnight. There's almost an expectant hush, like something more than dawn lies over the horizon. Although there's no moon, it's luminous. Starlight shimmers off the heavy drifts, painting broad glowing brushstrokes over sleeping yards. Each bared branch and branchlet draped in layers, white satin evening wraps about to slip off shoulde...

Re: * GIFT * Ahhhh. A sharp hiss inward, a backward sigh, like a kiss being Took my breath away. From where my inscrutable shadows eclipse a heart sometimes The view - but such a life-affirming image. The water rushes back in. The oxygen returns, pulled into rotation. Gravitas. The planets dance. The stars keep their secrets. Life goes on. ----- Lovely gift! Thank you. XO - kmf (RedSonja) (after a shot of earthrise, half...

Isis: elegy to my cat who's still with me or, my lesbian lover II. Like autumn bears the brunt of winter yet to come -- ambritch, scratch those strictures! sharpen, shorten your claws! on the loose pine of my first dining room mostly banished to my office -- She will not eat. I grant her the lions' share of all protein sharpen my knife to slender the sashimi I want to eat it glob the jellied to treat you in. He said we we...

Black Beauties, or: from Mali to East Africa, spanning a continent The short, heavy, gleaming cashier -- I was afraid to say  why -- I was so distracted -- stunned almost -- by the historic hairdo she wore so . . . well, it reminded me so strongly of Mali, in the pottery age: the tiles and temples; why not harken to that ancient library? Her body, overripe fruit, straining at the rind,  spanning a continent. But twisted b...

Oh the egg (an elegy for Zipporah) O the egg -- endless image of the hard-boiled egg, all it was meant to stand for: like the cyclic  forever-wedding rings, rebirth and springtime -- kindly expounded by the woman, the rabbi standing in for my husband's mother in the dining room where I missed her most just off the kitchen cramped with strangers' gifts at the shivah, her place vacant. ----- But still for me zipping around...

Black Squirrels From white squirrels on lawns, a child's handbook full of revolutionary popcorn in sewn-shut pockets: advice from a birthday present, "Steal This Book: or what to wear to a riot." I wore OD and combat boots,  all I could afford (the next year brought running shoes lined with newspaper, encased in Wonder, angry at not being allowed to run  barefoot - flatout in the 440 or the mile - long-legged, proud) and...

I thought I would share this piece, travels and travails in search of the Cleveland Amtrak station, written in response to an invitation from an advocacy group to review the station from the perspective of those with disabilities. Although unsuccessful in attaining the original goal (a first-hand review of the facility), the description earned an unexpected, generous "expense stipend" I'd prefer to tally under "freelance...

a perfect cost accountancy  of a relationship  (that didn't add up)  precise records of each transaction  listed in the wrong column  careful maths  but errors made in posting  debts carried forward  even with all those regular payments  no credit against the balance  and a cheque still due at the door

“Expert” may be parsed  into meaningful meme components: “ex” signifying former and “spurt,” a drip under pressure a Fox News expert on single mothers and the black family, says derelict parents nothing to do with slavery the struggles of Black America have nothing to do with slavery in talking points commentary not a sociologist but more a bigot, all sharp elbows with a facile voice louder than its weight  in content sho...

"Difficult . . ." difficult doesn't begin  to encapsulate, or capture:  "this." “This:” is unimaginable. I do my best to stand witness because someone must; to be present: a present, tense as long as it’s unobserved and given anonymously. ------------------- baseball could be biking could be political twitter-sex to cheat to win to scandal someone on the news just said "it was wideblown" meaning widespread and "everyone w...

sensible shoes kicked off in the foyer reclining across the overstuffed furnishing our shared liebesraum by turns hitched to helios or bathed in lunacy a lipstick kiss left on a mirror love burnishes the glass of twelve hours  forever separating us

If on purpose, or by accident you keep pouring yourself into me like sand with water passing through it you think it’s leaching, leaching, leaching and filtered through while I don’t notice waves and salt, the sweetened dunes ----- with our respective anchoring grasses and all the loose bits, dampened you've left me dark and granular at risk of temporary castles----- with all the atoms clung together we’re stacked in dyad...

I can't help but think of (react to)a four-letter word I associate with scatological banking and bad behaviour and bad loans and risk pools and those who stacked the deck in their own favour, with no regard for the house-of-cards that must eventually fail once it reached the stratosphere when the weight of all the crap the flimsy cards themselves would succumb to the jet stream undercutting somewhere further down or farth...

from the mulled rain in the quiet of absence a turtledove flew into my heart  bruising its flight within my chest cooohr, cooohr rings out in echoes against the rib-vaulted narthex waxed liquid jewels spilt over the altarcloth earthquake and tsunami waking to rolling thunder, lava sparks and hisses rushing spiced blood streams drumming in ears whispers chased into chrysalis and pupate, turning a thousand times, and a thou...