“Yes, you are in fact, dead. I know this can be hard to hear.” Death said with a compassionate smile “I can’t “help” you, but I like to offer one thing. Your last. I will show you your last. What would you like to see? Your last kiss? Your last talk with your mom? The last hug from your son?”
I looked into Death’s cold unmoving eyes with tears in mine. His eyes reflected what was in his heart, absolutely nothing. I suppose he wasn’t always this way, for his brain still knew what compassion means, which was evident by his offer, but millennia doing this job means a heart of stone.
My children had died many years prior, the first passed while fighting Chekhov’s war, the second dying from the nuclear fallout that soon followed.…
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Beneath the stark glare of a harsh bathroom bulb, he had no problem locating crow’s feet and frown lines and the three horizontals etched in his forehead. Red blotches and brown skin discolorations stood out like warning signs on a road under construction. But this was no work in progress. This was the canvas he was left with after sixty-three years of struggle, success and whatever it was that had come after that.
The feature that wasn’t as obvious visually, the thing that was more difficult to find, was that elusive element called dignity. Surely it was still there. It must be, he reasoned. Hidden behind the time and the mileage and the unrelenting belief that a man shouldn’t be judged by what he did, but rather by how well he did it. …
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In my retirement years I like to listen to music of the 70s when I attended graduate school at the University of Kansas. One morning in early July one song by James Taylor instantly evoked memories of growing up in El Paso. It was the song, Mexico, from Taylor’s album, Gorilla, whichI particularly liked, because it reminded me of that summer I spent in Mexico between my junior and senior years of high school. The lyrics are whimsical and joyful, with a catchy Mexican beat.
Oh, down in Mexico
I never really been so I don’t really know
Oh, Mexico
I guess I’ll have to go
Oh, Mexico
In the summer of ’62 I applied for a summer program to build friendships between El Paso and the small village of Río Florido.…
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The prow of the boat faced black water while the divers found their traps in the wet cold, the howl of their lights breaking windy waves. Jim Carter turned west, away from that hum, past the scratchy-roped buoys and into moon-bright waves, to drop the body: its smell like wasted soil, the dead flower scent of rotting water greened with slime.
The doctor’s anxious hairy arms had waved money at Jim like feed for seagulls, frantic. “Take this, take it, take anything.” Why did a doctor, barely breathing, prone to asthma, twitching into an inhaler, want his wife heaved over a boat?
“Just bury her,” Jim had protested, matter-of-factly. “That’s probably the easiest, ground still soft with spring and summer’s warming coming.”
“I can’t,” the doctor mouthed, between the inhales, gaunt as a ghost, breathing white nothing air, his inhaler back to his mouth.…
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Feathers twisted through the air,
Tangled and caught,
In the aimless descent
Of a dying spirit.
No longer joined to muscle and bone
Or unified by movement
And the intuition of flight,
They settled to earth
In a gentle chaos.
Quills tipped with red
Wrote of the inaudible fear,
Of the death suspended in the sky.
Too distant for sympathy or horror,
Yet close enough to respect
The nimble brutality
Of a graceful and admirable kill.
– Melinda Giordano
Author’s Note: The poem was inspired by the strange beauty and grace I’ve seen of birds fighting, talons locked, spinning through the air. A deadly ballet.…
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The canopies that cover the street obscure my vision, so it’s not until he’s upon me that I spot him.
Jennifer! – he sticks out his hand – how are you? – and goes from handshake to hug.
Oh wow! How are things? as I come out of his embrace, and scan my memory for his unfamiliar face.
The kids have been a handful; his parents have been ill. Work’s been a nightmare but what’s new. There was a holiday to Europe – that cost a bomb – but what an experience. Another planned to Fiji, without the kids. Do you stay in touch with Gabe and Shan?
If I look nonplussed, it’s because I am. To my knowledge, I’ve never met a Gabe, or a Shan, or this man that stands before me.…
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Before sunrise on January 4, 1909, Frank Ulysses Grant was up and eager to start his day. Over the New Year’s weekend, Frank’s thoughts turned to whether he should remain single or get married. On this day, he felt good about his decision to marry.
While dressing, the movement of his bare feet across the icy floors reminded him how cold Salt Lake gets in the winter. But, having grown up in the Midwest, the cold didn’t bother Frank. What’s more, the flat to gently rolling farmland where he once lived could not equal the majesty of the snow-covered Wasatch Mountains and the intense blue skies that often framed them.
Now dressed, Frank went over his plans for the day. In the morning, he needed to stop by his office to pick up a couple of mining claims and take them to the courthouse.…
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