Complete Sentence • October 2021

Mother Says

I’ll make you a little something to eat, just finish what’s on your plate and then brush your teeth, no, don’t lick your fingers, that’s obscene, use your napkin, please, would you stop picking your nose, and if you keep biting that lip it might peel right off, goddammit, get your feet off that chair, unless you want to pay for it, now why don’t you go get dressed, just holler when you’re ready, well, there’s no need to yell, I’m right here, why must you always torture me with that horrid sound...

Litro Magazine | Editor's Pick #EssaySaturday • October 2021

Destination Unknown

Two decades ago I met a futurist. Maggie wore a peasant blouse over her ruffled skirt, but she didn’t pull out a tarot deck as I’d imagined. Instead, she spread out a map. She drew an index finger up the coastline of Western Australia and marked our location, just east of Geraldton. "Everyone claims the Outback as the epitome of this country, but most people cloister in cities along the coast,” she said, pointing to Perth.

Cagibi | “on the ground” special feature + annual print issue • October 2021

Autumn Inferno

In the middle of the night, sirens startle me awake. My ears prick to the wind. Oak branches whip the sky like Medusa’s head of snakes—a raspy hiss. Plastic pool chairs scuttle across asphalt. Beside me in bed, my wife’s breath halts, sensing, before the cadence shifts back into slumber. I write in red ink while she sleeps. It’s fire season in California. October, my birthday month. Fall was always my favorite. But that was before.

Sonoma County Gazette | Penngrove Station guest columnist | pg. A-30 • October 2021

Feather Knoll Farm

My late father-in-law, Nels, helped out each day after school, collecting eggs and later hauling them to town in a Chevy truck with his special farmwork driver’s license. In addition, they sold milk and cream and raised hay, vetch, and oats for sale. Farmers typically worked 10-hour days. When someone needed a chicken house roof, friends worked together until they got it done.

Mason Street: The literary magazine of Newark Public Library • May 2021

The Distance Between

I awaken to dawn light illuminating the glossy privet, its white clusters of fragrant blossoms attracting honeybees to its branches. Their distant buzzing drifts through the open window as I slip back into drowsy sleep. Most mornings, still in my robe, I sip coffee on the side porch while the sun warms my back. Make bed. Wash face. Open the farm gate.

Sonora Review online-only special issue "Extinction" | University of Arizona Consortium on Gender-Based Violence • January 2021

Case Management

Every Monday morning we gather on the sagging sofas, some of us crosslegged, holding cushions to our chests, and report on the week’s cases. There is the woman I accompanied to the courtroom to testify after she was held hostage by a fiancé in a cabin for three days. It took effort to ignore the swastika tattoos on her forearms. There is the schoolboy I see each year. . .

Still Point Arts Quarterly (Food & Memory) | reprinted from Ruminate Magazine's 2019 Readers Notes • December 2020

The Bachelors

Sometimes he took us to Original Joe’s where we watched the line cooks move fast pans over the flames from our counter stools. Otherwise it was Tommy’s Joynt on Van Ness or the Jewish deli on Polk where I’d order a block of cream cheese wedged between two halves of a bagel. For my father: corned beef on rye, a little yellow mustard, but otherwise dry.

Tiny Seed Literary Journal (Through the Eyes of Nature) • November 2020

California Poppies

Do not ask when we will open, our blooming like tides, cannot be hastened. If we seem as weeds where there was once lawn, don’t pull up. Wait. These petals will unfold like crepe paper cups each holding a golden sun.

Redwood Writers Wish You Were Here 2nd place contest winner | Travelers' Tales 2007 Solas Awards silver category winner • October 2020

Romantic Getaway

Most of the beach bars were boarded up for the season, their stacked plastic chairs huddled against the wind. Walking in wet sand, I shirked the stares of a passing stranger and sulked. I longed for shared laughter with my lover and missed pouring Portuguese over my tongue.

Under the Gum Tree (Those Who Wander) | 2021 Solas Awards Honorable Mention • October 2020

The Nature of Beginnings

During the summer of 1999, despite an impending world economic crisis and the speculative doom of Y2K, I quit my job to hit the open road. Whatever contents of my Humboldt County cottage weren’t sold at a yard sale were transferred to storage. I even gave away the cat. I packed the hatchback of my blue ‘82 Datsun B210 with what I believed to be a few road trip essentials . . .

The Rumpus.net: Voices on Addiction (Memoir Monday selection) | Finalist, New Millennium Writings | Semi-finalist, VanderMey Contest • September 2020

Fallen

I’ve grown accustomed to my brother’s rants as well as his delusions of grandeur. In five years he’ll own ten properties! He’ll become a millionaire! His obsession with money is matched only by his impulsivity. Two months before high school graduation, he had an epiphany: all he ever wanted, he realized, was love.

Sunset Sunrise: Redwood Writers Anthology • September 2020

Hope Against Hope

"I could just close my eyes and sleep," says my mother-in-law. She rubs at her temples then scoots back in her recliner to watch the evening news. When my wife and her brother took her shopping for a shower chair, the simple act of shuffling from car to store wore her out. Now, when her friends invite her to the movies or for a walk she says, "I don’t think I’m up for that."

Hypertext Review Contest Finalist | 2021 Best American Essays Nomination • August 2020

Politeness Will Not Protect You

Each of us showed up with specific vulnerabilities informed by our own life experiences, but we all shared one common denominator: a pervasive fear of rape. Self-defense introduced a new discourse, one that challenged the myth of provocation and the concept of muscular strength as a primary measure of power. It dismantled long-held presumptions about male omnipotence.

The Dewdrop (Isolation Shorts) • May 2020

Porch Time

As oceans-full of sky unleash spring storms to wash away drought it’s difficult to picture this earth parched, now wet with fresh bark from a pile by the barn. Even the sheep sound unsettled, their patterned movement between pastures disrupted. The lambs bleat—a call-and-response—to bridge the distance. Always after it rains there is a stillness. We creatures tune in, listening while we shelter: the drip of oak leaf onto gravel, the swish of a wing. . .

About Place Journal (Practices of Hope) • May 2020

Please Don’t Climb: Controversy at the Heart of Australia

It is impossible, upon visiting Australia, to resist the allure of Uluru. The world’s largest monolith, also known as Ayers Rock, towers more than 1,000 feet above an arid desert plain in the so-called Red Centre of the island continent. For years, anyone determined to scale the massif could clamber up a mile-long route, assisted by a chain handrail bolted into the sandstone.

Halfway Down the Stairs (50th Issue: Milestones) • March 2020

Late Bloomer

Mosquito bites. That’s what my older brother called them, taunting me the day I got my first “training” bra: two flat cotton triangles sewn to a thin strap, which clasped around my torso with a single hook. My prepubescent days playing shirtless like a boy, unbridled, were behind me. I wondered about the womanly form my body would blossom into.

Toho Journal (Toho Online: Place) • December 2019

Church Street Beat

Yes, I remember that railroad flat we shared on the third floor, the one with the chandeliers and dumbwaiter closet and wall heater with no heat. In my narrow room with its blue desk and single bed, you sat between my knees while I braided your hair. We listened to the rhythmic rocking of the gay lovers making love above and the alley echo of the boy below...

Cagibi • December 2019

Postcard from the Outback

We’ve detoured inland after miles of monotony. Nearing the Pilbara the terrain transforms into a rusty, rocky landscape rich in iron ore. We set up camp near Mt. Nameless—an insult to the local Aboriginal people who have inhabited the region for at least 40,000 years. Jarndunmunha, as they’ve named it, is Western Australia’s second tallest mountain.

Discovered catalog: Emerging Literary Artists • December 2019

Love, Unconditional (excerpt)

I hadn’t seen my grandparents for nearly a year when I planned to visit Nana one last time. In mid-February I bought a plane ticket for early March. “You might not make it,” my father warned. He knew dying does not cater to the will of the living. I did not yet understand that death offers no second chances. One week before my scheduled arrival, Nana was gone.

Bohemian/Pacific Sun (cover story) • December 2019

Finding Hanukkah in the Happy Holidays

"No fair!" a friend complained. "You get stuff for eight days and we only have one." While I knew that Santa did not exist, I found myself pining for what he delivered down her chimney. The pack of synthetic yarn ribbons I received, which frayed like my frizzy hair, could not compare to the Barbie DreamHouse towering under her tree.