My Mother’s Coat My mother unearthed her winter coat from the walk-in closet— a parka she had worn thirty years…
"Going Forward"--acrylic and oil on canvas, 12" x 12" Erin Schalk is a visual artist, writer, and educator who lives…
Heading West In your whole life you flew only once. It was night, and the need was urgent.…
coffee grade school mornings I woke to my mother downstairs at the mottled gray kitchen table alone with her coffee …
Adagio in Your Absence Day after day, the piano sits unplayed, its lustrous, black-lacquered presence impressive and imposing through the…
Delicately Once in river-strewn Zyxistan in a hamlet whose name was a secret entrusted to the eldest crone, a child…
First Winter in Kopjes, South Africa We smell winter arrive in smoky trails of wind lurking low over dry…
Office at Night, 1940 --after Edward Hopper A man at his desk ignores his secretary standing next to him by the…
A Hoary Issue In the beginning the Earth was flat and infinite. People ran away from the gods, built cities…
Riding with the Diaspora The air is sharp with the sound of Chinese, sweet with Spanish, like a good sauce,…