“POUR OUT LIKE WATER,” Gold Man Review Issue 14, November 2024

The entire world is following the whale’s mournful progress from Puget Sound through the Salish Sea. When Namoi learns other orcas from K23’s pod have been sighted bringing her salmon to eat, a small cry drops from her mouth. She curls her shoulders and holds her torso, her open palms pressed to her belly.

“THE REFUGEE,” The Waves Anthology, A Room of Her Own Foundation, August 2023

For years they had been telling Radwan to leave Aleppo. The young linguistics professor should take his family and flee to Turkey, they said. Follow the footsteps of his colleagues to London, Hamburg, New Jersey. Yet he stayed. He learned a new language, the language of war: barrel bombs, improvised mortars, RPGs.

“THE VOLUNTEERS” The Selkie, March 11, 2019

When the volunteers stepped off the Air Afrique jet into the lemon light of the desert, men wearing mirrored sunglasses and holding semi-automatic rifles ushered them across the spongy tarmac to a small, cinder-block terminal. The group was silent. The heat roared.

“WINE: A LOVE STORY” Emerge Literary Journal Issue 10, January 2016

"I know we'll grow old together, shriveling into rich brown raisins."

“PRIX FIXE” Mud Season Review Annual Print Issue Vol 1, May 2015

"Each morning, the band of four set out from a B&B, each hiker silently calculating, with weary resignation, how many steps lay ahead until the next hot shower. But the fatigue would dissipate as they found the trail and rounded a bend to a spectacular view of Dingle Bay or the Blasket Islands or Mount Brandon rising out of the mist. The rhythm of breath and feet and walking stick, the drifting thoughts, the half-sentences that never materialized into conversation—these became the soothing ellipses of each day." 

“MILK AND BLOOD” Cobalt Review, Issue 11, March 2014

"I am the last to arrive, mistaking Emerald Street for Emerald Place. For one moment I catch a whiff of stale chocolate milk and floor wax. I see myself walking down a hallway lined with lockers. It is odor and vision of dread, of being the new girl in school. That feeling doesn't disappear as you age. But now it smells like candles from Restoration Hardware."

“THEIR NAMES" Three Minus One: Stories of Parents' Love and Loss” SheWrites Press, April 2014

We can name the children who began their lives with such promise, whose hearts beat in tandem with mind. But we have no name for the rage, bewilderment, and unfathomable grief of losing a baby." 

“COLORADO: Up Do: Flash Fiction by Women Writers; Spider Road Press, February 2014

"Jess had met Patsy and Darcy at a canning class in Delta in September. When she came to class one Saturday with a split lip, they offered her shelter in their large tipi outside of Cedaredge. Free of charge, just help with groceries and cooking.  When she confessed a couple of weeks ago that she was two months pregnant, they told her they would like to adopt the baby. When Jess laughed, she saw Darcy’s hazel eyes fade to dull mud." 

“DULCE ET DECORUM EST” Cirque: A Literary Journal for the North Pacific Rim, Vol 4 No 1 Winter Solstice 2012

"The young man stepped away from the door. Lily turned the handle and walked inside. She saw that his undershirt drooped over military fatigues. His feet were bare, but a pair of lace-up boots waited by the side of the daybed, next to a dark green rucksack.

“THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE” River Poets Journal, Autumn/Winter 2012

"The kill sheet is damp from the chill of the slaughter floor and spattered with blood and small bits of flesh. Thick red pencil shows the weight of each side of the carcasses. A black ‘X’ indicates that a beast tested positive for disease, was isolated from the herd, and killed in a separate pen. I wipe away the gore without smearing the data that mark the passage from life to meat."

“WATER CHILD” Stories for Sendai, June 2011

"With white walls, red trim and layers of tiled roof, Kannon-do Hall sits like an elaborate confection on top of a softly sloping hill. She walks through the lower gardens, past ponds filled with golden, darting Koi, and up the steps cut into moss-laden hillsides. People funnel past her, searching for the famous eleven-sided statue of Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy. Past the main temple is a garden enclosed on the three sides by stone block walls. Thousands of small statues line the walls and stand in crowded rows in the rock gardens. These are the Water Children, the souls of unborn babies. They are placed in the radius of the seated Jizo Bodhisattva, who will see them safely to Paradise."