
Two Hawks, Two Yolks
“Now what?” I asked the Chihuahua that twitched at my feet, wrapped around my ankle. “I need to get some work done, and I’m distracted enough. This piece won’t write itself.” But complaining was a waste of breath because I always did what the dog wanted. As it was deep fall in Texas, temps were […]


Tiger Lilies
I never thought much of them. To me, they were just some tall and ugly wildflowers in my least favourite colour. Orange. But my father saw Tiger lilies differently. They served another purpose for him. He’d summon us to the side of our house on the first day of school, the place where unkempt foliage thrived. It was the stuff he wouldn’t bother tending to, though we’d find him there without fail on the Tuesday after Labour Day. “Bring me the scissors,” he’d say, eyeing those lilies. We usually found the pruning shears in the garage, buried among a pile of


Embracing Strangers
As the driver pulls into the ambulance bay at the hospital, a wave of relief washes over me. Now that we have arrived, I can finally exhale. This is not our first ambulance ride to this world-class medical center, and I am more than confident that the team of preeminent medical experts will be able to fix whatever ails my mother, as they have so many times before. Yet, witnessing my mother in anguish guts me to my core. I’m holding my mother’s child-sized hand while the EMTs wheel her gurney down the long hallway toward the emergency room. My mother


Stages
It cowers in the corner, newly born. I turn my spite-soaked back, riddled with resentment and pull the thin veil to sink beneath its cover. I will not watch it crawl, but it breathes, a shadow at the edge of my own threatening to merge. It waits, as I do for nothing while I ignore its cries and mine. And I turn to stone silently refusing the darkness at my feet. ~ It screams a piercing shrill that grips my core. It pokes and presses every bruise, clawing at my skin with high-pitched scratches. Enraged, I seize it. A thunderous wrath