Writing

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"How to Return" Essay in The Fourth River

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"How to Return" Essay in The Fourth River

“I don’t remember what my friend Zach and I were talking about on the phone that day, cozied in our prospective homes in the midst of a Flagstaff windstorm—if what he asked me was related to our conversation or simply out of the blue. But the question is now the only part of the conversation I’m able to recall. 

‘Are you sick in your dreams?’ he asked.”

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"Sick Gal Seeks Rare Elk Sighting or Mate" Essay in Hobart

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"Sick Gal Seeks Rare Elk Sighting or Mate" Essay in Hobart

Chronic illness already made dating hard. And then the pandemic arrived.

“I almost forgot—” my childhood friend interjected as we were wrapping up a phone call on a blustery September day. “I talked to Lindsey and she agrees that you don’t need to put a disclosure on your dating profile. You can just cross that bridge if you meet someone you like.”

Two Poems in Cold Mountain Review

“Large shapes move into sight and hover directly before us. The seals are
bloated and still. Rot-darkened flesh hangs from glimmers of bone; their
eyes, swollen like canned plums about to burst, stare past us. ”
— "Dream of Seals, Circling"
“I wouldn’t mind the company. Then there’d be two
of us to wait, feasting and sky-burrowed, knee to
forehead, forehead to knee”
— "What Happened in the Branches"

The Little Garden That Could

The Little Garden That Could

The city wants to tear up my garden.

By garden, I actually mean a young, thriving food forest. It’s so much more than annual vegetables. Rising up from the street, the terraced slope laced by wood-chipped paths explodes in a colorful array of raspberries, elderberries, currants, aronia berries, salal, strawberries, blueberries, and rhubarb. Mixed in, smaller beds of kale, summer squash, peas, and sunflowers make a brave stand in the varied terrain. Birds swoop in for kale seeds and bees buzz cheerfully amongst the borage flowers.