Esther
When she was dull, dull and tired of watching TV or any number of mundane tasks, she would go out to the garage to investigate. The…
No. 2 · Hawthorne Road
Surfaces
Dragonfly wings—mother of pearl trilled with charcoal and pine, finely transparent above the buoyant bluegills suspended below flowering lily pads with azure and emerald scales, each…
No. 2 · Hawthorne Road
Deer
Looking for trouble is serious business for white tail deer in the frosted Indiana fields. They amble deftly in a black and white world dotted by…
No. 2 · Hawthorne Road
Groundhog Day
Sometimes boys lie on the edge, out of sight along holey-hill— long guns trained over groundhog colonies tempted by sunshine, tempted by clover, waiting for gullible…
No. 2 · Hawthorne Road
Fly Fishing
Trickery is stirring, drifting in the brook, a shiny ordained barb luring the fish with a colorful story— promising fulfillment while twisting and dancing like magic…
No. 2 · Hawthorne Road
1850 – Rising.
1. She took the bull —the breeder, our entire future down the dark trail. There was no discussion about mother, about the guilty footprints to the…
No. 2 · Hawthorne Road
The Orchestra
Choruses of insects wail at the cross- roads of the forest, where many paths converge. Insistent choirs perform their orchestrations, sounding alarms, of- ten commandments to…
No. 2 · Hawthorne Road
My father’s woods
Walking through my father’s woods I am read by blind saplings reaching out to brush my face with their curious leafy hands. They are the turnstiles…
No. 2 · Hawthorne Road
Flash flood in Bridgman
On the edge of Bridgman there are no sirens—no fanfare when the river vomits in- to the gulley, flooding the farm- land, delivering odds and ends…
No. 2 · Hawthorne Road
Shadow in the garden
She was an incidental earth mother born of lust like those be- fore her. Though the passion faded, the garden erupted anyway. Things abandoned will grow…
No. 3 · Derailed
Turns
Rochester Charlie is a panel away coughing up a lung in his slum across the hall, no different than my own, and I am struck by…
No. 7 · Ditch'em
A Fish for Dad
Bobby Isum Jr. was 9 years old when he went fishing in the pond the locals call the pit. The pit is an ominous looking place…