“Am I a good person? How do I ever actually know whether I'm bullshitting myself, morally speaking?” ― David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster You’re going to run yourself to the ground tonight. You already know this, so you shrug your flimsy shoulders at the thought. You’re in Manhattan, near Union Square, leaning against a lamppost with pigeons shooting their black beaded eyes up at you. The rain bites at the roofs of the yellow cabs. The clouds are blotted with the bla

Out of gray and mournful sky, a month’s snow falls in a day. Birds don’t dare leave their roosts. Not even the fastest of them can fly between the flakes. With ice in its engine, the wind is sharp. Dead leaves attempt to ride the billowing to escape, but are mercilessly tamped down. Rabbits nibble on the last of a garden. Mice burrow down wherever the earth will have them. The house sends smoke signals out the chimney from the fire I light. The warmth of the flame barely exte

I chopped down the nest—took a heavy pair of hedge trimmers & cut all the vines & branches surrounding, careful to avoid the old telephone line ent- angled with them. I thought it was an old nest, considered for a moment that maybe there would be baby birds inside, but figured on it being empty & not with two eggs— [soft turquoise robin’s eggs]— resting in the belly of this bowl I now held in my ignorant hands. When we moved here, I was 7 & enamored with the glory that was de