Looking down from my second story porch I see the flowering quince they say will thrive in almost any soil. This one is no doubt dead, though its faithful branches reach up and outward, insulting the brittle dry sticks that pin the massive bush to fertile ground. Watery red flowers the color of diluted blood…

 Stocking the Pond                500 bluegill in a tank  on the back of a truck,               parked on the bank,  pouring them out. Fifth grade,               early spring. The year  I was taught there were right               and wrong ways to be  a man. I watched               the waterfalling bodies  of the fish, our pond               like a holding cell.…

After I gave him my dented hands which in any case were still valuable                                                                                   …