Tag: Family
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Look In Her Eyes
Her eyes are the deep brown of the Ethiopian coffee that runs through her veins with all the strength and sustenance that coffee is for that country. Deep wells of love and pain, sass and longing and empathy, with the unconscious knowledge of centuries of custom and tradition. She is firmly tied to those villages,…
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Be a Star (To Matthew)
….From where you are To where I am now Is its own galaxy Be a star And fall down somewhere next to me…. Pretty Things by Rufus Wainwright You were afraid of us when we met you. I was newly off to college when my father was your professor. You were a student who played the…
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Safe Passage
I had a front row seat when they began to dismember her. Chunk by chunk, they dissected her and spread her out and scrutinized her. They scooped and sawed and chipped at her until there was nothing left inside; until eventually the wire she was made to walk became so narrow, tight, and sharp, no…
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The Unfriending
I’ve been unfriended. Not in an offhand virtual click of a button way, the result of a web-based housecleaning that goes unnoticed for weeks, but in a bloody cut it out with a knife never speak to me again unfriending. Oh, I brought it on, I fully admit that, and I deserved his anger at the moment of…
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The Quiet
Traffic noise on the street is a constant refrain. Music and shouting, cans rolling on the pavement, angry cats fighting, neighbors clamoring for all the air and space they can grab and it never stops. The noise inside me that no one else can hear is just as deep and loud and even though it’s…
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Putting It To The Flame
“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I…
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The Runway in Addis Ababa
We have been flying for 17 hours. Cramped, dried out and restless, muscles aching and emotionally depleted, we are finally landing at the airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I’m hungry for the sight of this country to which I’m suddenly deeply connected. I look out of my window, just past the wing of the plane. The…
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My Mother’s Table
I learned a lot at my mother’s table. Lessons about sharing, loving, acceptance. I learned frugality and common sense. At my mother’s table there was always room for another chair, and another plate, and the food always stretched in a loaves and fishes way. There was a hand on your shoulder. A hug. A home…
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Gathering In
I gather them all in as often as I can, holding them in my hands, trying to capture every drop and drink so deeply I never come up for breath. Memory collects and fills and overflows my fingers. The bedtime songs “again…again…again…”, and me, so very tired that even when I knew I should be…
Truth and Malbec 