Author Archives: janishaag

After missing the eclipse the night before,I drive home in the blazing incandescence of a full moon on high beam, power lightingthe sky so that when I step out of the car to try to capture its radiance, I land … Continue reading →

We put pair after pair of her shoes intogreat garbage bags, some for donation, somebound for the Place Where Old Shoes go, but some I could not quite bear to release—the dyed-to-match pink linen pumpsthat accompanied the fuchsia sheath with … Continue reading →

through your just-written poem as you read it to your writing group is to pronounce a few words as best you can, gulping, gasping in your shakiest voice,then pause, take a deep inhale, then read a few more. Repeat. Read, … Continue reading →

We all want to pluck a chunk of time,usually the good bits, and store themsomeplace safe— a chronological savings account,perhaps, or we chop time intosmall sections and stuff it into mason jars, tucking thoseprecious containers into our souls’basements so that … Continue reading →

(Noun: Music. A more or less independent passage at the endof a composition, introduced to bring it to a satisfactory close.) Neither my sister nor I thought it was important,but the family photographer did, wanting to take photos of us … Continue reading →

I couldn’t find it for months, the bracelet thatshe insisted had to be on the dining room table,the one I could not find on the dining room table, nor in her bathroom atop the slender medicinecabinet jammed with jewelry and … Continue reading →

My sister said to me in the driveway,her truck and my car, which not long agowas Mom’s car, full with the final loads from the house our parents called homesince 1966. Weighted with so much stuffbound for my own over-full … Continue reading →

I hadn’t realized whenI gave them to her one Christmasthat they didn’t match. “Jan,” said my mother in herwhat-have-you-done-now? voice,“These socks are mismatched.” “What?” I said. She hadn’t yetremoved them from their cardstocksleeve. “They have butterflieson them. You love butterflies.” … Continue reading →

Shimmering before my eyes most days now,a vision that makes me both worried and hopeful, I wonder: Is that the glaucoma? Oh, wait,is that you, Helper? Nice of you to drop in. I used to think of them as angels, … Continue reading →

If I must dielet it bring hopelet it be a story —Refaat Alareer from “If I must die” ••• I feel hope leaking likea bag of fresh sunlight afteryour slow passage into the what comes next.In the array of pale … Continue reading →