Goodbye to Princess Di

     Five hours behind Paris, I was in the twin bed of my uncle's funky house in Maine when word came that she had died. This was before he had moved the bed into the corner, and it was still parallel to the narrow room. With its ribbed foam mattress pad, layers of blankets and duvets innumerable as baklava, the control bulb of the electric blanket tapping against the footboard, it was a lumpy canoe of insomnia due northwest, toward Bangor.
     I had left the news bulletins, each one reluctantly graver than the last, downstairs. The reading lamp was already turned off when I heard my uncle on the chirping floorboards, coming closer through the unlighted maze of cut-up hallways and rooms. He was 64, and his steps landed always in the same spots. The old house was filled with his papers and souvenirs, sets of coronation china, postcards and photographs from former students—many of them fortyish now—and his acrylic paintings from 35 years ago. Landscapes of his beloved Maine, rocky coastlines, snow-heavy spruces, and a blood orange lake sunset with giant cattails in the foreground, they were fastidious, literal, composed but unimaginative. Yet they formed an affectionate opus, the backs of the boards amply filled in with the painter's name and location, the date, and often a handwritten paragraph of dedication. Painted for Grace L. Dodge in thanks for many kindnesses and in remembrance of many good and pleasant trips.
   

Waiting for September

     Fall is coming, and the dogwood berries are tucked into bunches of leaves like clip-on earrings.
     I spent the whole summer standing in the door frame of the back porch, smoking. Outside, the sun baked the steel landing and steps, and the trip down to the garden, wilting yet overgrown, seemed pointless.
     The coneflower refused to stand, but the deep yellow rockets stared heavenward the whole time, like a children's choir. The saturated color against the grey-green and cobwebbed background drew my attention, hypnotically.