My mother’s handbag was a heavy burden to carry, but she lever left the house without it, clinging to it like a life raft as she navigated the world. It always contained a tube of hot pink lipstick from Merle Norman, wads of Kleenex that smelled vaguely of perfume, a plastic rain bonnet that folded into a tight rectangular fan, a beige Naugahyde case that snapped at the top, containing a pack of True Blue cigarettes and an assortment of plastic lighters in various colors, a

I am thirteen, and I’m doing the same thing I do every day after school: hitting a tennis ball against the door of the garage over and over and over.

I remember that last Day of school, the anticipation of the bell, riding home on the bus with oversized folders stuffed with all my...

Inspired by George Ella Lyon's "Where I'm From" Antique map of Wonzeradeel, 1718 I am from the lake in the middle of Friesland, in the...

Inspired by “Tomatoes” by James Crews When I see a child eating soft serve ice cream, I’m transported into the back of my father’s Chevy Malibu, speeding down the windy roads of suburban Pennsylvania on a humid night, thick with bugs in the headlights and the sound of cicadas competing with “Kodachrome” on the A.M. radio. I’m humming along, trying to keep pace with the ice cream, which is now melting down my wrist and dripping onto the vinyl upholstered back seat. I sense t