A Story and A Wish

December 24, 2017.Reading time 3 minutes.

Table six in the fourth floor dining room at the long-term care facility is a favourite with the staff. Ninety-eight-year-old Dorothy leads the pack with her no-nonsense attitude. Beside her sits Verna, just eight years her junior, who always has a smile and a kind word for everyone. Carole is the junior member of the […]

The Way It Is (tanka)

At every turna challenge – prefer scenicforays, encounterrocky climes – ironic twists,stretching this reluctant soul (Image my own)

Doctoring

Doctoring broken hearts –my own legacy a training ground –like an anesthesiologist I keep the patient breathing,asleep – muted by kindness,unconscious and unable to react. Why? Because lulling others is moreeffective than operating on self –faux obligations such a balm Administer lidocaine to the woundsNumbness preferable to open-heartedinvestigation… no sutures strong enoughto remedy internal bleeding […]

Facades

Somehow I knew his mask was porcelain –impossible to hide the soul’s lightreflected in troubled eyes… I played along though,humoured his self-deceptionnodded at assertions of calm Knew that one day the facade would crackthe mask would slip and the rage escape Why I didn’t run; I do not knowMaybe it was recognition –my own countenance […]