Since this all started, I haven’t seen heads or tails of the raccoon that lives under the shingling of my neighbor’s roof. In winter I occasionally sighted him, a dark shape travelling against an unlit alleyway- or slowly emerging from where the gutter had come loose and swung in the wind. My chances were better … Continue reading Living in the Roof
Up the hill, after the center of Widcombe and the train station and the canal crossing, is the house that will outlive me and all my old friends. There was no canonical order to the history of careless nights spent in the cheapest public houses of old Bath. As we dug into the now-extinct culture … Continue reading Prior Park
I’m looking in from the road on a misty night at the Cape house I grew up in. It's half past five in the morning. The ancient white farmhouse, nearly as old as the country itself, stands renovated by its new owners. I can see the glow of the kitchen windows on the tall … Continue reading A Dreaming at the Tulip Hotel
Your letter in the mail is the overdone romantic comedy played repeatedly on the Betamax player of my brain. I keep rewinding and repeating the moments, until the wow and flutter distort the memory of when I first pulled apart the glued security seal. In manufactured magnetic static, what you wrote would be the opposite … Continue reading Betamax
My father Robert grew up in Shaker Heights outside of Cleveland Ohio. I have been to the house where he grew up numerous times to vast my grandparents: his mother, and his step-father Terry. The house itself is three stories tall, with old lighting and bathroom fixtures from the 1930’s. The driveway, which leads to … Continue reading Spirit Reports Chapter 8: Robert
Chapter 1. Haunted. My childhood bedroom was on the second story of the house which now belongs to my mother. The room was against the outer wall so that the slope of the roof was that of the ceiling of my bedroom. In winter it was always the coldest room in the house. I used … Continue reading Spirit Reports Chapter 1: Haunted
There were black flies buzzing about my head, when I looked up from my book, and saw my old friend walking by. You and I gave each other a nod of recognition. I had't seen you in a few months, and I'd really been hoping we could avoid any more close encounters- now that we … Continue reading Hirō Onoda
Take to your holds, your windswept hovels and your ships quarters. Below deck, down the old oak folding ladder with speed, and nearly run right into the center table where we ate dinner, built by my grandfather, suspended on a clever balance, like the stove, and the lanterns dry of oil. Take to your headaches … Continue reading Arthur Kill Ship Graveyard
Stranger with a mullet and baggy cargo pants. Keep smiling because it's all that can't be taken from you. That's what he said in broken English with a French accent, begging for money. Parisian metro scalpers. Unfortunates. The note grows sharp and the train rattles forward. No, I have nothing to give you. Faint smile, till … Continue reading Beggar on the Metro
In beeswax leather, and in morning frost, I can find you still. Here, in the garden, beside the snow drifts that look like the sight of some ancient avalanche, where we lost three skiers last winter. I am waiting with a steaming mug of something cowardly. In Woods Hole, by the bakery that my grandmother … Continue reading Ode to Steadman
Ryan Shockey Davis 