People are walking back and forth in front of the camera pointed at the open guitar case, set up in front of bookshelves at a Phoenix Barnes and Noble. The video is over a decade old, and he looks younger. We all were younger then. The song is undeniable, a gift. Maybe not a hit, […]
‘I’m on a conference call right now.’ Except he wasn’t. He was standing in the middle of the street, laboring under four trash bags stuffed to stretched-plastic capacity. His streaked hoodie was pulled over a frayed hat, grimed shorts drooping to his calves. I’d just said, ‘Hey man,’ when he abruptly turned to me with […]
Giant wings blocked the fading remnants of day outside the window, before collapsing somewhere above, close to the nest of baby swallows clinging to the eave over the back door. Dusk masked superfluous details, so the feather color eluded me, but I was sure the bird was a hawk. I hustled outside to discourage her […]
My first glimpse of that stretch of sand was from the top of those stairs, now pictured on the front page of the newspaper. I knew I was standing on the edge of a welcome, needed free-fall into the unknown back then, but I never could have predicted the particular tidal ebbs and flows, the […]