Category Archives: The Next Chapter

It was the week of asking. Asking to watch her eat. Asking if she understood the doctors’ questions. Asking her to explain the difference between wanting to die right now, and dying later. The tumor making certain answers unquestionable. I … Continue reading →

The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t mind happiness not always being so very much fun if you don’t mind a touch of hell now and then just when everything is fine because even … Continue reading →

Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it. My coming, my going — Two simple happenings That got entangled. This untitled poem by Kozan Ichikyo, written in 1360, represents a genre known as “jisei” or Japanese death poems, once … Continue reading →

My wild grief didn’t know where to end. Everywhere I looked: a field alive and unburied. Whole swaths of green swallowed the light. All around me, the field was growing. I grew out My hair in every direction. Let the … Continue reading →

If it had been a heart attack, the newspaper might have used the word massive,           as if a mountain range had opened     inside her, but instead it used the word suddenly, a light coming on in an empty … Continue reading →

In “Relentless,” poet laureate Ada Limón locates the speaker’s mother in a vineyard Credit: Dan Meyers via Unsplash Sun in the cool expressway underpass air and Ma calls, says it’s nice out today during her long walk through the vineyard … Continue reading →