He hated it, the regolith. Product of billions of years of meteorites that had pulverized the soil, shattered it into glass. “Moondust” was too lyrical, he thought. Too soft for the sharp-edged angles that abraded their visors, tore at their suits, penetrated everything, causing seals to fail, machinery to clog. Even as he knelt to write his daughter’s initials in it forever, he carried already a remnant within him burrowed deep in his lungs, bore it all the way home so each night he looked up, it cut him a little more, every bladed breath an exhalation of separation and rue.
work has appeared in numerous publications, including Colorado Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Cream City Review, Flash, Rosebud, and Man in the Moon: Essays on Fathers and Fatherhood (Center for Literary Publishing, Colorado State University, 2014); as well as in these W.W. Norton anthologies: Brief Encounters (2015), Short Takes (2005), and In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Non-Fiction (1996). Recognitions include the “notable essays” section of Best American Essays and several Pushcart Prize nominations. In addition, several of his full-length and shorter plays have received stage readings in GEVA Theatre’s Festival of New Plays and the Fringe Festival. He lives in Rochester, New York.
