a maroon leaf drops stem to stem with a yellow an autumn death pact My mother is 101. She lives in a home. She had a private room until last month. Until her privacy didn’t matter because reality doesn’t matter. Because I live half-a-country away, I never met the new roommate. Until my visit last …
By the way, when Basho takes his Narrow Road to The Deep North, he is walking a path that leads him to, through, and around the very area in Japan that is suffering the nuclear disaster. Asaka, now Fukushima, he describes as wooded. It is here, if I recall correctly, that he searches in vain …
Gradually the meds start to work. Now there’s the sobbing to do, barfing out the pain. Merciless, God is merciless, has eyes in the back of his head just like Mother did. She was always watching me with the eyes in the back of her head and now the back of my head is riddled …
My dad, Frank Roper, was a caterer and a versifier of sorts. Here’s my dad’s rhyme to my sister Debbie on the topic of defensive driving: Here lies Debbie, who died one day, While trying to maintain the right-of-way. She was right, dead right, as she drove along, But she’s just as dead as if …
A decade or so ago ago, I was teaching in an all female, Catholic high school. A few weeks before graduation, two female students were caught kissing in the bathroom. One student, Marla, was a current student of mine. The other, Diane, I had taught a few years before. Both were very good, serious students, …
Stop, I scream, stop! I’m clutching the door handle to the fridge. Is it time for the deep freeze? Husband who gave me the silent treatment, again, again, is now going to give me the deep freeze. He’s giving me the deep freeze by staring into my black, beady eyes with a frozen stare. He’s …
If you’ve never been to the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, you may find yourself wondering whether you are going to see a show or are on your way to pay for parking. Sharing its site with a garage, the theatre is situated across from Six Penn in the heart of the Cultural District. A placard directs …
It is said that great things come in small packages. If this is so, then Pittsburgh’s quaint Future Tenant’s art space offered a gift of gigantic proportions. With its walls adorned in maps from various European locations and the stage a mere wooden shelf and lounge chair, one would wonder what entertainment could be provided …