Wonderfuland

The first time I left for Florida was on a January morning in 1952 when I was six years old. My grandparents Invited me to drive south with them in their new hunter green  Cadillac, the early ‘SOs bulbous version with pokey little fins. They spent half the year up  North, next door to us on Bernice Road in Lansing, and the other half down inBradenton near Anna Maria Island. Out of the dozen or so grand children, It was my turn that year to go with them to Florida.

That morning, dressed up in a new, maroon coat with a fur collar, direct from Uttle Bramson’s in Chicago, …

~Red Rock Review, Spring, 2016

How I Went to Prison

My first classroom—before I went to prison—was in an old convent. I couldn’t figure out which  room it had been. It was non-descript with windows on one side that faced the parking lot. During breaks from teaching English, I often sat on the porch with Andi, the art teacher. I was immensely happy to visit with her randomly to gossip about surviving the teaching life at St. Malachy’s Catholic School. Sometimes I felt we were holding on to the same life line while we drowned in the rules and rituals: wearing pantyhose (no open-toes), even when it was 95; monitoring the jigglers at morning mass; decorating the classroom for parent-teacher

~Skirt!Magazine, September 2015

Fat Peanut

Ann raked through the dresses on sale. A blue dress with a chain link pattern. A
Pucci. Pucci’s back.
Most of the good stuff was gone. She remembered when this shop was a wood hut where the islanders—the real islanders—bought cheap beer, cigarettes and salami. Now Pine Avenue was turquoise and pink, with a designer donut shop and shop after shop of this stuff. Her hand dropped down the polyester sleeve of a yellow and pink top with swirls from neck to hem. My sister could carry this one off. I couldn’t. …

~Toasted Cheese Literary Journal, June, 2015