The Start of It A friend of D’s wife G says there’s been a bad accident. “That’s all I know,” she says, “except that it happened on Rte. 15 and Laurel Road.” She lowers her voice as if she doesn’t want to be overheard. “D is in surgery right now as I’m telling you this. G is at the hospital. Their kids are on their way.” A Bit of It Hours later, a posted photo of the accident site on Facebook shows one car destroyed, the front end crushed, the rest damaged by fire. D’s...| Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction
Práta means potato, child. Prátaí póir are seed-potatoes best planted on Good Friday. Iomaire is a potato bed and taobhfhód its own particular sod. Bachlóga are potato sprouts; millíní are the buds. Báinseog phrátaí is a patch of potatoes in bloom, lovelier than you might think. Caldar is a big potato. Práta préacháin is a potato pecked by a crow. Paidríní are tiny as rosary beads. Sliomach is soggy, prátai breaca have gone off, prátai dubha are nothing but rot. Smoladh i...| Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction
Listen: On this night, the house is an organ, an orchestra, a bellowing storm. The stream roars under a bridge and balconies, channeling into rapids, leaping and crashing onto boulders below. Nothing is silent this night—forested as dusk without sun, cloaked by rain that thunders as if to announce water is coming to find the path of least resistance, to find her way home. This is a home of water, falling water, falling everywhere: over flat roofs and cantilevered terraces, sculpted balcon...| Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction
of crows, they who first saw me at the retreat: week in ohio, more than a little death at my heels. five or six of them, the crows, perched and rattling a dead-top tree, cackled me down a good morning (returned). a good morning (returned) is what I am seeking; that elusive memory of sunup unhaunted by husband daniel. seeking that breeze unbothered, but there are hornets in ohio too, late june, that inject death their own ways. in my attic room one made a brooch of itself, pi...| Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction