Malady
 
He’s never been sick before
skin warm and ill-fitting, moist as he sinks into me,
that exhausted root for comfort and the fear that
he’ll be declining soon.
Children know to seek this oath from thei […]

I had long been convinced that destiny had intended me to be born and bred in Italy. Instead, I grew up in suburban Chicago. In September 2008 I set out to rectify fate’s error. Together with my husband Bill and o […]

Risa Eccles, thirty-nine weeks pregnant, sat in her car, furious at Dr. LaSalle for being an asshole, at Paul for having the kind of job that made him seem like a degenerate, at herself for thinking that […]

***Anne Carson is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Essay/Memoir Contest***
Before my older sister outgrew me, outgrew our entire family’s chaos, we shared a bedroom. For a few years there, we were goo […]

Okay, maybe not exactly saved it, but at least shored it up.

Let me tell you how.

My husband and I married in the late 70’s, back when our generation was all about living simply, off the land and off the g […]

Charybdis and the River
 
Do you hear the gurgling river?
All the molecules of oxygen and hydrogen
in their special dance, choreographed,
washing memories clean,
liquid fingers wearing grooves
into the […]

Soundtrack 3 (1964)
It’s a cold February day. My parents and I are visiting Saint James School to decide if I will go there in the fall. I am in the ninth grade at Sligo Junior High School; I am lost there b […]

California Girls was the lyric that bumped the bass held together by a woman’s sweet, altered, voice that tasted like vanilla but left a burn like bottom shelf vodka; and Elsie Malabago loved to hear this s […]

***Heather Bartlett is the 1st place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Essay/Memoir Contest***
 

“Working for 24 hours straight is all about your perspective,” he says. “Your body can handle it. Human beings a […]

Congratulations to the winners of Streetlight’s 2018 Essay/Memoir contest! But first, a little whining.

Judging a contest is a lot of hard work (whine, whine). I hasten to say I don’t mean the reading of the […]

I Bought Them
 
I bought them,
two big books,
fat with two lifetimes of poems,

not so much to read them,
which, over a long time, as is meant, I will do,
but just to look at,

their bigness,
heavy as […]

I like games. I like cooperative, team-building games in particular.

Here is a game called Midnight Adventure that I played in competition with several teams:
A group of five people (my team) worked together […]

Before surgery, before the bones are set, and while blood flows from Jacob Randolph in quick rivulets, Agi is there. She is the nurse on duty when he is wheeled through the doors of the ER. She witnesses […]

Mom Wants to Talk Football
On the gridiron of family life, she and I stood
the sidelines, flanking the husband and father
who, fourth and goal in the waning minutes,
always called his own number.

She, the […]

Twisting. Turning. Twirling. Swirling. Slipping. Sliding. Gliding. Falling. Soaring. Flying free.

The magic of carnival rides, animals and the whistle of a circus calliope are evoked like silver […]

Images come in my imagination, either imposed by impressions from the movies, music or theater or by simple communication with another person. Some think my works are based on literature, but this is not […]

Michaelerkirche goes back to the 1200’s and looks it. Being from a country whose ancient history—as far as English-speaking people go—stretches back to Plymouth Rock, I have no local frame of reference. What is th […]

How to Grow Wild
 
Vision failing, she feels the leaves
looking for butterfly
weed, a seedling from her
greenhouse for me to take, add
to my efforts to flower
a field. Cup plant, sweet […]