Latest Works

wisps of my mother’s Latin  haunt my head while  my fingers caress the water’s surface and I cross myself  In the name of the Father, the...

“Jimmy!” Grant whispered. He grabbed his sleeping brother’s shoulder and shook him. “Jimmy, wake up!” Jimmy groaned. He opened one eye...

“Why is this night different from all other nights?” – From the Passover Seder Here I lie, chad gadya on my hospital bed counting my...

Kate looks nearly translucent under the stage’s spotlight. But she knows this. She doesn’t wear a getup like the others. No tattered...

The altar here is a bait box on a cold deck. The wharf is  our pilgrimage road. We worship ships lost at sea and the children who grow up...

My wife was giving our young son a bath one night when he raised a toy helicopter above his head and said, “I saw God from my...

what writes itself on the surface of the stream  reveals its lungs in concentric circles  to me tethered to the bank  as pale gold leaves...

I  He shows me his hands,  calloused from work.  I look past their roughness  and see  his mound of Venus  protruding from the thumb....

goodbye, Grandma said  in Mandarin  not a language she knows.  one she learned for me  who left home  and her garden unattended  one she...

Whenever our family got together, it was inevitable that we would sit and tell stories. We would gather in my grandparents’ adjoining...

Thou anointest my cornbread with honey.  My sweet iced tea overflows.  Though there may be tough rows to hoe, Goodness, grace, and mercy ...

To thee, an angel, called by the Lord unto the operation of this machine— In the days of Moses thou puttest the word of God into the...

At a lancet looking out  on empty hills and dark forests, Carpathians  hulking against the horizon like titans,  he watches for other...

The river doesn't care if you're ready. Mid-life catches you like an undertow, drags you into waters too deep for standing. One day...

My mind, memories, and soul came into being—like waking up, only somehow, I was already awake. My dim cabin aboard the Samsa was more...

The moon casts her milky drape  over stoney gardens—shadowed with crosses stretching the grass. My blistered tongue whispers,  entreats...

When my father was teaching me how to ride a bike, he also taught me about sin. We lived in Vienna, just having arrived from Minnesota....

I live in the house my grandfather built when he was young and strong, and filled with love and dreams. Where I lay me down to sleep was...

We come to it After a walk Through a field Late afternoon Shadows closing in Sunlight already golden. Old tree, Its beard scraggly...

Have you ever taught a lesson over symbolism to a room full of thirty-three teenagers while holding cupped handfuls of your own...