Poem Asking Forgiveness From People Long Dead Winter has set in, though the hummers have stayed and must search every morning for sustenance immediately they open their eyes. Immediately I open my eyes and think of your visiting my dreams last night after years gone, my slipping hands around your strong midriff, your dancer’s body,…

I breathe the stillness of a predawn air, the day after Christmas, the day after heavy rain and winds accumulate their miseries of flood advisories, power outages and highway closures. I breathe the predawn air, heavy with the sound of humidity– the hum and whir of air conditioning units perched on window sills facing unblinking…

The Brakes Near seven decades of run on, sentenced to a worn and hazy neatly there you go, so you’ve slowed, you slowly, give up to the end of indecision always anyway, come to a creeping standstill, your appointed hour quavers at stasis, the surrendering admit yourself to the final mystery of what you wanted…

“You pau?” she asked. Not impatient or mocking. Just a question. “Pau,” I said, not even sure. Maybe I could go again. But maybe she would charge again and I would waste money. “Pau,” I repeated. Put on my pants, hands still shaking from the pleasure but I knew not to linger. I don’t smoke…

I get dis nice blue tee-shirt says PAU? in w’ite lettahs on da front. Da back says NOT PAU YET! in w’ite lettahs. I get da tee-shirt from Mr. Lum. W’enevah I wear’em, I stay LUMped inside some cotton-kine LUMbo, Not he’a, not de’a. Not yet.

“Propinquity” is a word I learned in a junior college sociology class. It means something like proximity or physical closeness. Sociologists say that propinquity is the strongest factor determining human pairings. If my ex and I had not gone to the same high school, we would be unlikely lovers, spouses, parents, and exes. Propinquity could…

The energy of the stream was flowing directly into the base of a displaced coconut tree. Over time, it tipped diagonally, nearly washing away with the current. All it would take was one more downpour. We attempted to reduce the pressure around the bank where half the roots were exposed. We found a large boulder…

Third grade, da whole second semester, Andrew kept telling me, “I hope I no get Miss Sato. I hope I no get Miss Sato. I hope I no get Miss Sato. She da meanest teacha in da fourth grade, maybe da whole school.” Even da teachas know she real strick, so we bettah behave bumbye…

I’m eating dinner in Liliha Pizza hut last night. A guy, younger, comes in. I call out to him. I haven’t seen him in years. We say hello, he sits. I find out he’s got a degree in English too. From Michigan. His brother, also a Lab Schooler, went to Washington, majored in Anthropology. “Say,…

Saint Nesanet, Patron of Gratitude Every day, several times a day, I look upon the small porcelain figurine: me, sitting, leaning forward, a teensy book spread open on the altar of my tiny, supplicating hands. I am reading to her class, my son’s class, my class — high school English. Mixing business and pleasure, reading…