A September Afternoon

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I want to walk hand-in-hand in a forest with you on a late afternoon in September. We’ll wear comfortable shoes and jeans along with light jackets.

 I want to watch the wind scuttle leaves across the path and catch the sighting of deer and teenage fawns;

The golden light is prisming through the trees and the light will catch your eyes like the radiance of a halo, magical and ethereal.

I want to walk along the river in silence stopping now and again to skim a stone or savor your lips.  I want to be wrapped in your arms as the air chills on the shore–and the wind kicks up.

I want to sit with you on a sofa in a cabin, cocooned in blankets and drinking mulled cider with a sliced candied apple on a stoneware plate making our fingers sticky–Mozart’s Jupiter wafting in the air, soft and sweet, rising, falling and then soaring.

I want to wrap you with my naked body and murmur in your ear all my secret longings.

I want you.

Call for Submissions from Military Brats (past and present)

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Connie Kinsey, the Museum of the American Military Family and Learning Center’s Writer-in-Residence, is pleased to put out a call for stories for our newest anthology “Home: It’s Complicated.” Where is “home” to a Brat? What makes home a home? What does it feel like to “move home” or “leave home”? Is home a person, place, or thing? This topic is timely–we at the museum are asking this same question for ourselves! Later this week we will post further details on the project–but for now, sharpen your pencils, warm up your laptops, and think about home

The Puppy

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I stared at my beautiful, evil wife and realized the horror had only just begun. 

Sabrina was gorgeous, like her name, in that mid 1960s way — full-bodied, statuesque, thick glossy black hair and impossible blue eyes.  She was what the old folks called Black Irish — that mating of the Spaniards with the Irish during the Spanish Armada.   

I had been woefully unprepared for life with her, having married a scant two weeks after meeting.  I was besotted.  Another old-fashioned word, but it is the only one that will do. 

Photo by Barcs Tamás on Unsplash

Asleep, I had felt that uncomfortable sensation of being examined. I rolled over and she was glaring at me – knife in hand. 

Sabrina!  What the hell!  What are you doing? 

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Hillbilly Risotto

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Growing up, we called it hamburger and rice.  Hamburger browned in a skillet.  Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice made according to the directions on the box.  The two ingredients are mixed together and served with salt, pepper, margarine, and a squeezable plastic lemon full of concentrated juice.

My dad grew up impoverished and hamburger and rice, often without lemon, was a staple.  Once he became a private in the Marine Corps, the meal became standard end-of-the-month fare.  We continued to have it throughout my childhood and early adulthood.

When I left home, I continued to make it.  It’s a favorite.

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