fiction
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Travels with Mommy, Part I
I am happy to report that the tricks and trades of the budget traveler still work out there, and I have discovered one more: the panini check. Like a coat check. But involving a left-over sandwich. Our story begins on… Continue reading
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The Shake Down
She’s standing there with a knife in her hands, shaking it at me she’s so angry. Tense moment #567 in the span of so many throughout this impossible situation, though most of them not involving weapons. “It doesn’t work that… Continue reading
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The Harvest
I think I roasted the squash just for spite. Or a distraction—something else to gripe about, something to take her mind off the many things I hadn’t done right in the short time I was there. Too much tomato in… Continue reading
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Perfetto
On the fifth floor of the Italian consulate building in Philadelphia, the AC has gone out. Someone has opened a window near the elevators, an odd choice on a hot day as it is a huge window, about waist high… Continue reading
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Cover Me
It’s five a.m. and there are lights in our woods. I can see them out the bedroom balcony window, trajectories of light, all angular—all up, all down, piercing the silent trees standing clueless; and then a car, emerging slowly through… Continue reading
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Bring Offerings
It’s called the Burk Emporium for a reason. After near 30 years in the same house, two attics and three sheds-full later, we have one of everything on the planet. If not, we can surely procure one for you. And… Continue reading
Souvenirs 