To Be Well

I ask directions from my life and it points me in wildly different directions: 4 different jobs. Persimmon tea with a hint of lime. Doing what I’m afraid of from IRAs to teaching adults about creativity. When I was going through a rough patch in college, my friend Annie sent me a letter. In it, […]

Flash Floods

Flash Floods  by Nancy Schatz Alton I trace the spaces this life has made in me: the way the underpass, bereft of water feels to my running feet how once the running stopped the orange bike arrived & I rode how I rode in the basement a new path unlike the path I made on […]

I Don’t Know/I Want

I eat my lunch while reading, my thoughts faster than the speed at which I can write them down. Oh! My students should read this: here’s a poem about peeling an orange. Wait—it’s really long & it’s about cancer and war and travel and oranges. The vent system of our house is pushing waves of […]

Fire

To write one true poem. The year begins, and I hear the words again: To write one true poem. From my wall hanging. The one I stop and read. The one about loving wolves over dogs. Make haste for your gifts. Prepare for the words to light you up. I don’t know which words are […]

The Now

Ah. The 31st. I already went online and saw summations from 2018. The instinct to gather and look behind is so great. I am a lover of memoir. I understand that. I want to gather what is behind me and make a story that can help me live out tomorrow. But more than that, I […]

Where’s my ladder?

My mind wants to hinge on the negative. So I throw it the flip side & watch it simmer. And I throw it poetry & find a black hole. Shimmer back to senior year, how I tossed a swimming pool into the black hole paper, how creativity tossed with science is good enough to get […]

Washing the Dishes

When I finally insist that the vacuuming of the room needs to happen, the breaker clicks off. The roar of the machine overloaded the circuit. The room is black, only the light of the screen still lit. I push every breaker except for the right one, my rain boots on my feet grounding me to […]

Unclench

My deadlines are done for today/my mind unwinds the thread of the storyline/my muscles unclench from the need to help my brain find the right words/how to ease into quiet time after the noise? I hold myself so tight/it’s only in the release that I see my stance/I push articles up and out from within […]

A Durable Sweater Set

  A Durable Sweater Set  by Nancy Schatz Alton The girl with the blue sweater grades papers. She looks more put together than me. A girl with a plan, a purpose, a sweater set, her life just beginning. I’ve always thought if I had the right clothes, everything else I wanted would arrive on time. […]