The trees dripped their honey in thick layers onto the sidewalk, all a-sparkle and a-flutter in the sun and almost-wind. The parade floated by, silver with horns and music, with drummers drumming, and clowns running and splashing confetti onto delighted children. The Brooklyn Bridge raised its arms toward the sky, the Brooklyn Bridge–a temple, a palace, an architect’s dream of a boardwalk with the green river peeking through its planks. Clouds lined up above it. White boats slid underneath it. Buildings gathered round it with the trees–the trees and their glory-filled...

We both fried apples for our guests on the same night. No doubt her slices fell faster, cleaner into the pan Dad bought her, now dark and worn like her fingers, while mine limped with spots of red skin still on their backs, into the pan Dad bought me, shining on the stove. Our houses smelled the same that night, 800 miles apart, with our apples softening in cinnamon- sprinkled butter-and- brown sugar syrup, just like she taught me.  ...

Our spirits sang on the water, and the water sang with us.   It was the water that identified our voices. On a hotter-than-usual August day, in the middle of a dryer-than-usual summer, it summoned us, including the self-conscious, the sanitary and the serious, to live from the very centers of our hearts.   We secretly hoped our canoes would capsize.   * * *   What is it about floating around in willow leaf-shaped boats on a river no more than a deeper and wider creek that’s so exhilarating and exciting? That day we were pictures in magazines, characters in a make-believe movie. We...

This afternoon I held a tiny brown-skinned baby in my arms, his soft face scrunched with the intensity of sleep. His shining black hair, like loosely curled threads of silk, barely covered his head. As I cradled him in my lap, his sweet-spirited grandmother, who was in town all the way from Tanzania, Africa, brought steaming cups of African spiced tea into the living room. She sat beside me, and I passed the precious infant to her so I could sample black tea blended with the foreign spices.   It was as wonderful and refreshing as the African culture of hospitality that I was experiencing for the...

(for Stephen)   smile rare and delicate like sweet pears in winter, soft vanilla cream cheeks   sliding–board nose that shyly kissed Grandma’s   little lily the sun comes out when you open your petals