I enjoyed calling my friend “Mr. Bill,” because I truly respected him that much. I was a person who never respected anyone. ...more

As far as I know, aside from stamping out ice cream cones in a factory when he was a teenager, my father’s entire working career revolved around the selling of alcoholic beverages. He began as a high school student helping out in the tavern purchased by his father, who had accumulated a fortune building houses before losing it in the Crash of 1929 and trying another avenue to get back on his feet. ...more

I’d rather not write about you, because writing about you means you’re somewhere else. I’d rather not write in the second person, as if the ‘you' (you) were right here instead of at Mt. Auburn Hospital in your pajamas. ...more

Momma, if we talked about such things
I would tell you,
I met a girl
I think I love her
like I think I love you…
or as much as you would let me. ...more

It was August 2009 when my father and “the kids”—my two sisters, my brother, and I—were sitting at Mum’s bedside on the 19th floor of Mass General Hospital, in the thoracic ward, watching her closely and awaiting the latest word from her surgical and oncological team. On September 23, in the wee hours of the morning, she died.

The last words I remember her speaking were, “We’re off and away!”… And so we were! A year later, aboard our home away from home for the past three years, ...more

SEVENTEEN YEARS ago, I was thrown into a cell in the Segregation Unit at Holman prison for conspiring to escape. I felt as if I had been pitched head first into the open jaws of a monster, a monster whose roar was the sound of steel banging against steel; whose moan, the whispering of schemers late into the night; whose cry, the whimper of tortured souls shadowboxing demons; and whose smell, a rank mixture of rat shit, body odor, urine, and disinfectant. The gullet of this beast—a narrow hall ankle-deep in trash and bits of food—fed nightly armies of roaches and mice. ...more

Now,

two years later

I see you

in the sunlight patterns that cross my wall in winter.

I can think of you

on a summer night full of stars.

You are with me

as the autumn wind

gently moves the leaves outside my window.

You surround me now with gentleness.

But,

at the time you died it was different.
...more

At 12 years old I was in a constant struggle with discipline and how things were supposed to be. I didn’t feel good inside. Everyone said I was bright, but school always meant problems. Poor grades, taking forever to learn, bad attitude, and mouthing off to teachers and coaches. I couldn’t care less. I would lie and cheat if I could get away with it. ...more

As I faced the impending death of my beloved father, Alex Schoenbrun, I wondered how many more times I would feel satisfied saying and hearing “I love you” so that it would last me the rest of my life. ...more

Mama you made beautiful quilts
To wrap us in,
And little shoes for my little feet.
You brought okra from a seed
In our family country garden,
Turning over the earth in the summer,
topless. ...more