We need to talk about this time of day—half dawn—when the ethereal is that gasp between defibrillator compressions.

When she was younger, my grandmother danced cour for a local ballet company.

I meant melody & strings, rhapsody & joy. Like wall barley, crumbling naked at a touch. An open sky.

I hear melancholy in it as well as contentment, but different listeners will hear different things.

I have stumbled into so many of the loves in my life.

To Trade a Throat for Song

Call this bridge, meeting place. Call it, mosque. Call it, and it will call back.

Lake Song

When night came, we were shepherded inside. Too many animals. Too many hungry trees.

Music, Personal EssayDanie ShokoohiSeptember 17, 2017

Home is a City in Your Mind

I stopped writing. Okay. Yes. But say instead, the world ended. Say instead, lobotomy.

Music, Personal EssayDanie ShokoohiSeptember 2, 2017

A Sonatina for King

When I think of my piano, I always picture an open lid, the keys collecting a shallow pool of the yellow light.

Homecoming (a selection, a remembering)

My two weeks of solid travel begin at 5 AM on the train platform to Chicago.