“MOMMY!” By Andrew Hidas The tiniest shortfall of a tiny hand, merrily reaching for safety poolside— and missing. Fateful collision of lip and cement, the gash gushing precious blood staining red the waterwings designed to forestall catastrophe. Flurry of activity, lifeguards rushing, the ice they bring serving as balm for body and soul, halfway to the ER his babble already resuming the incessant joyful grrrrr of trucks and dinosaurs. Five hours later, exhausted and asleep on his mother’s chest, darkness abiding, the team…
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VLADIMIR PUTIN INVADES MY DREAMS By Andrew Hidas Fresh off the shingles vaccine, arm sore, body leaden, spirit damp and porous, Vladimir Putin invades my dreams through a long night I long to repel. I want him out! gone! no more of those lizard eyes and pursed lips bearing down on my weakened defenses, looking to run roughshod over all I hold dear. Groaning to a barely wakened state, I lapse again, the nightmare resuming, the assault relentless, Putin throwing…
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WATCHING MY GRANDDAUGHTER’S GYMNASTICS CLASS WHILE CONGRESS DEBATES AR-15s By Andrew Hidas Everything to live for, the everything stretched out before them, gamboling like lambs let loose to bound and bound in the tall grasses of spring. Parents on their phones up above, a half-eye at most diverted from Facebook, the glowing faces of their daughters lost in the jumble of limbs below. “He shot my friend that was next to me and…
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THEY’RE PLANTING TULIPS IN KHARKIV By Andrew Hidas The news tells us of mass tulip plantings in Kharkiv, just one more Ukrainian city bringing new definition to the word “beleaguered” in this long spring of horrors. I picture those tulips tightly clutched in fists, shaken and ascending to the heavens as an ultimate “Fuck you!” to the bomb-droppers and missile senders who become blinded by the color explosion of tulip petals hurled aloft in anger, defiance and hope—blessed, dubious, inexplicable hope. In our front garden the other day, the world’s most purposeful sparrow…
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RESURRECTION FOR NON-CHRISTIANS By Andrew Hidas Stay with me now, you non-Christians (of which I am one). The hard believers will insist there’s nothing for you here, Irredeemable heathens that you persist in Being. But believe not, I say, in those believers, their binaries Blinding them to nuance, context, symbol, the Dusky liminal depths of myth more real than reality. Resurrection is yours, too, for the taking. You need not wear a cross on your chest,…