Fistful of pennies and candy in wrappers, Bobbing for apples, teeth snap and they scamper, “BOO” stenciled pillow case expecting something, These are my favorite Halloween things… Ghost whispers silenced in goblins’ loud chatter, Bulgogi sits while trick-or-treaters gather, Batman and Robin glide through on caped wings, These are my favorite Halloween things… Dads dress…

I turned down College Walk. The air sat thick, gooey. Termites swarmed the streetlights. The canal smelled like dead fish, was lined with plastic bottles. Stopping, I leaned over the wall, searching for floating bodies. My shadow shimmered. “Hey, handsome.” She came beside me. I could see us mirrored in the murky water. Turning, I…

Alfred get one eraser dat smell like candy. Alfred always smelling um. Not like you smell one flower but stick um up your nose kine. Uji. I sit next to him even if I no like cause my last name same as him. No can help. I draw one line on da desk and tell…

Waiting For the dancer who loved her, she heard a different beat. One that made her heart bang against her chest walls. He said, “I am taken with you.” And she said to him, “Wait.” And the dancer offered her ribbons and bows taken from his voyages, and she paid for them with her time….

She was a busy mother of seven–the youngest barely out of diapers–and attentive wife to her high school sweetheart, a delivery driver for Love’s Bakery in Honolulu. Multiple distractions kept her from registering the first tremble until the unexpected miracle grew large enough to have its heart beat heard through the cold touch of a…

Labor Day supposed to be one holiday. But Daddy tink dats da last chance fo make me and Russo do work before school start. Aftah dat, we can tell we get homework so we no can cut da grass, trim da hedge, or paint da kitchen. So Labor Day means we gotta LABOR. Fo lunch…

I wanted to say I’m doing ok and everything’s good but there’s no sense in that, so I’ll just tell you ’bout Lizzie’s birthday party the other day. She wore the pink dress that you got her the one with the giraffe with the goggly eyes, Sarah tied yellow balloons to the picnic table out…

My father, proudest in his life for serving his country in World War Two, lived his last three years in a nursing home, confined to bed, urinating and having bowel movements in a diaper. When he could focus and talk to me, I asked if he still wanted to be buried in the National Cemetary…

The summer of 1957 I worked at Dick’s Men’s Shop and Bremerton Locker Club for $1.00 per. “Watch out for the union man,” Dick warned. “He’ll take your money’n go.” Dick kept me hidden when the union man’d show. Then he caught me right and took my money, sure. Instead of $1.00 per, Dick now…

Another Dead Poet’s Society Like that secret Valentine passed to the red headed girl who sat in the back of the class, carelessly opened it and laughed and passed it on to her girlfriends who giggled and pointed at you in your sublime humiliation. Like so many rejection slips buried between the leaves of dusty…