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The Attack

When I was in elementary school, I lived next door to the county sheriff. The sheriff’s family was best friends with my family. One of the daughters in the family was our favorite babysitter and second mom. We loved that family. The sheriff’s family had a dog. A German Shepherd. His name was Shane. Shane protected our house the same...

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Sounds of the Day Leaving

I am sitting here on the point of my screened porch listening to the day leave. Squirrels crack nuts. Mocking birds, attempting to colonize the highest branch where they can lord it over all the other lower birds, scold. Wings flap. Even in January, bugs buzz. The sun lengthens shadows. Cars hum on Beach Boulevard, one, two, sporadic. Dogs bark...

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Time is and was: 2020 into 2021

Do you believe in what might have been? How about what was and is again? Do you believe in that? Multiple strands of time, I’m talking about, so that, in what might have been, the twin boys I longed for in my first life—King and John Powell—are nearing thirty years old. Brown-headed handsome young men. It could have happened, if I hadn’t...

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Malcolm X has died, and I am Full of Sorrow

Malcolm has died three times in my last four months. First, he died in Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Then he went silent at the end of The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told To Alex Haley. But his death in Les Payne’s The Dead are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X was the most difficult. In Les Payne’s opus,...

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How are You?

Hi, y’all. How are you doing? Is it going okay? Tell me the truth. I’ll start. If you’re Christian like me, it’s the Advent season leading into Christmas but all the churches are closed. If you’re American like me, it’s the transition period between presidents, which is going swimmingly. If you’re female...

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To You

If I focus on loss this Thanksgiving, I will not survive the holiday. Instead, I tell you: I am thankful for my fav cuz Corinne Sampson whom I can call whenever I need someone to listen and who can call me when she needs someone to listen to her and who of all the millions and billions of souls on this planet entirely gets my sense of humor....

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Waiting with Baited Breath

As far as where my writing stands, I know y’all await the latest news with bated breath (which if only it were spelled “baited breath” would mean your breath smells like an earthworm wiggling on the hook.) So you’ll be glad to hear that IN THE NAME OF MISSISSIPPI is with the 2nd round of Beta Readers. By the time this round...

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When We Still had Class

My dad went to prep school at age 13 where his father took him to the railway station, shook his hand, and said, “Give ’em hell, son.” There stood the little boy on the platform, by himself, waiting for the train. He entered college at age 16 and, at such a tender age, ran track for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill....

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