The Whistler on Harris Hill
Spoken by One Who Didn’t Listen People around Elmira tell the story different ways, but it always starts on the north side, where the Chemung drags slow through town and the hills decide who they’re going to notice.
West on I-88
A Vigil for My Father We keep watch so love has company in the dark. West on I-88 I. Westbound West on I-88, the hills lean close, fog stitched along their backs like something unfinished.
The Brass Ring
A remembrance at Eldridge Park in Elmira, NY At the edge of the hills, where the air holds the scent of mown grass and river wind, a diamond-shaped field gathers the last of the sun. Dad laces his cleats,
The Old Home Streets
On ol' Lincoln Street I’ve often thought if I could go, Down Lincoln Street the old folks know, I’d find again that battered door, The cracked front step, the maple floor.
The Boys of Lincoln Street
Five Small Legends from a Long Summer Preface Lincoln Street was the whole world once - cracked asphalt for outfields, maples for scoreboards, and porch fans humming like crowds in the stands. We were kings with gloves for crowns and pockets full of gum and luck. Every bruise was a medal, every laugh a victory parade. These poems remember that world - not just the games, but the friendship stitched between them. The way we faced down winters with courage, and each other with grins. The way one missed catch could become a myth. The way a single…
Costumed & Coated
We knew what it meant to go get candy in Elmira at the end of October
Warm Vents and an Angry God
I remember the house breathing through long metal lungs, forced hot air hissing through the vents like some practical American dragon, its warm breath sweeping the floorboards, finding my ankles, scattering dust motes into constellations.
The Fog at Elmira Heights
A Remembrance in Shadows and Smoke ...if we don't wake up to find ourselves safe in our beds, it could come again. To the ships at sea who can hear my voice, look across the water, into the darkness. Look for the fog. - Adrienne Barbeau as Stevie Wayne
Something Wicked to Lincoln Street Comes
Both touched toward fourteen; it almost trembled in their hands. And that was the October week when they grew up overnight, and were never so young any more. - Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury The book was a door that winter.
West Egg on Lincoln Street
I was fourteen, cross-legged on the bed, a paperback widening the space between my hands as evening slid across the walls, that uncertain hour when ordinary things begin to glow at the edges.
