An amendment to the reverendmother birthday rules, to address the fact that the tradition for our church’s staff birthday luncheon is to bring books for one another and wrap the books using the comics:
If you’re going to do something so delightfully retro as to wrap a gift in the funny pages, you need to make […]

folding your body
into the nest
between my lap and chin,
a book in your tulip hands,
you are jasmine scent
and a glint of gold.
page after page
smiles back at you:
smudged watercolors,
brilliant primary figures,
sharp, cheerful photos,
and yet?
on many a page
your eye falls
on the negative space
where the images
aren’t:
“dark,”
you say, hushed,
pointing,
like you respect it.
dark,
dark,
dark again.
what do you see there
in the unchanging black,
in […]