My Mall


The mall of my apartment complex is a rectangle of 
well-trimmed grass, a couple acres with a basketball
court, swimming pool, and swings for kids, just below 

my balcony. It is where my neighbor’s schnauzer gambols 
with other dogs taut on owners’ leashes. It is where Dads 
and Moms play catch with sons and daughters. One Dad 

on a prosthetic titanium leg impresses. He throws a mean 
fastball to test his kids. He gives no quarter to that IED that 
took his birth leg. Before me lies a different kind of mall

than America’s Mall that busses of locals visit to purchase 
bits of the American dream. My mall preceded ferroconcrete 
boxes with concourses through shops of Chinese widgets. 

My mall is rooted in colonial America and the village green. 
I prefer my mall to the one on the outskirts of town. Yes,
I concede both are American malls. But my mall is best.





My Uncle Arne


I visited Uncle Arne at the Sons of Norway nursing home.
A pallid parchment papered his face and arms, the onion

skin paper I once typed on. His signature Norse grin was
now a fence of teeth of that pike at the bottom of our canoe, 

on a fishing trip long ago in north Ontario. His vigorous, 
tanned lumberjack’s torso, once ripped in muscle, had

withered. Uncle flexed biceps and triceps only in memory.
A bear broke into the ice chest on our cabin’s porch one 

night, scattering ice, glittering gems in the moonlight. Uncle 
Arne was calm, a source of power. I vowed to be like that.

But not like this. The ghostly skin, onion paper in my type-
writer, so brittle, unable to contain light.  Not like this.