Katherine's Coffeehouse

When in the throws of spring I remove my top in public, will you sail quickly, back towards conventional wind? More importantly— will you bail me out?   #KatherinesCoffeehouse  

For everyone missing their mother, I offer you a memory of mine: She hugged strangers, invited the lonely to dinner in her own home, fed everyone too much turkey and ravioli. Sometimes canned ham, too. And she always mailed us Easter baskets, even when we were grown. All that cheap chocolate, wrapped up in too …

Now Untitled Read More »

Tonight, peepers pepper the air, thick with the sauce of spring, a dinner of biscuits and decaf coffee, reverse breakfast, southern flavor that somehow edged its way north. No complaining. It all ends up in the same place, that feeling of fullness that promises an early snooze. Enjoy. Be lazy awhile. Tomorrow marks Monday. There’ll …

NOVA Spring Read More »

No more, those morning tears. I’ve absorbed them, adoring them, like salty gods, singing them, like the rime of an ancient mariner.   Water, everywhere. See? I didn’t drink.   I didn’t have to.   #KatherinesCoffeehouse #PoetryMonth

What if on Bring Your Kids to Work Day I brought my books? What if I sat them next to me on an a wheeled office chair, facing me cover first, my nom de plume on them, their birth mother, their title their given name, copyright their birthday, page numbers their weight, ISBN their social, …

Bring Your Kids to Work Day Read More »

It’s hard so hard to get specific. No one wants to wait while you try to recall words you really need to explain a problem, a fear, a flower.   You always end up generalizing. “It’s pink,” you say, but you known in your heart the cut peony is fuchsia, lightening bolts of white passing …

Generally Speaking Read More »

Each March, I fall for it, the siren sun wading through blue to the abandoned crow’s nest over my house, sticks and torn shopping bags jutting out like a Jolly Roger, the sound of possibility trifling with dead leaves and plastic. Even the raven won’t land here, and the squirrels have abandoned ship. So what …

Pirate Life Read More »

Fear doesn’t bother to sneak in. It lunges, with a screech, arms spread like wild wings, fingers grotesque talons of some long-extinct lizard fabled to sear the town in flames. And somehow, you’re not surprised. And, you ought to know what to do. You’ve seen the movie – find the soft underbelly hidden beneath a …

Un-sneak Attack Read More »

We did not spring forward – we looked there, all the while wondering whether approaching snow would march us back to winter. #KatherinesCoffeehouse

Past eleven. Were it morning, it might not matter, but night’s a story that should have ended an hour ago, slammed shut, the finality of day done, an old woman muttering, “enough is enough.” But I’m still up. I’m still writing. Still trying to wrap my keyboard around moving words, the kind that slip between …

Still March Read More »