Americans so dearly love to be fooled. – Charles Baudelaire.

It’s every man for himself,” he said, and went back to reading. After my mother had died and he’d been laid off from his machinist job over in Milton, he’d retreated into near silence and the print reality of other worlds. Connection was tough for him and only getting tougher as he aged. Maggie asked me once if the reason I wanted to become a writer was to somehow make contact with him.

I’d like to ask you a question, if I may.”“What?”“All these poems you’ve written and hidden—so many poems. Why?”While she thought, morning broke and the birds sang in the garden. “Because I could not stop.

Parents: so essential, yet sometimes likesomething you've stepped in and cannot get off your shoe. What else is there but to love them?