It’s hard to see him as a farmer, isn’t it? Bending over the rows of lettuce and corn, feeling the ears between his thumb and forefinger, all the while remembering breadfruit and mango? It’s hard to see him here at all this time of year. Pacing the oak planks of the writing room upstairs, sitting at the table, wearing these glasses, staring through the window out at Greylock, Greylock whose back reminded him of whales. It’s easier in winter. In winter when the five hemlocks in the yard are a five-masted bark. When the mountain … Continue reading Arrowhead, Melville’s Home, Pittsfield, Massachusetts by J.R. Solonche →

When we lie side-by-side in an afterglow, he says, I used to be a man of my word. Neither of us wants to label his intentions, fearful of finding the meaning in definition. Our fingers come together, interwoven like the white, fraying threads of our patched-up quilt we bought on the side of a highway in New Mexico where a girl was swishing a hula hoop on the points of her hips as she danced like an accident in progress. My hand settles on the wall, sliding down peeling paper and strip away a large … Continue reading Hooping by Bailey Merlin →