Author: KCF

Two people approach each other. Sparks are flying off their bodies but they force themselves to slow down, like sports cars approaching the starting line, latent power sublimated. Once they are close enough to smell each other, they extend their spines upwards and roll their shoulders back, revealing – as if they were peeling away…

I saw her across the dance floor. It was an afternoon milonga at a downtown cultural center, one of my regular haunts. Huge paintings of Galicia hung on the walls, dulled by time but intended to remind immigrants from whence they came. The wooden floor was patched so poorly in places that it often caught…

by Kevin Carrel Footer The past reminds me of things that were. Like sugar-coated castles, those things glimmer in the distance and their beauty overwhelms me. I would like to return, but cannot. I can find no way back to the lost places. The maps have been destroyed; the paths twist out of recognition. The…

By Kevin Carrel Footer I have been working lately at making that strong place strong. It is hard work. Often the strong place isn’t so strong as it should be. But it should be strong – it must be strong – if we are to become fully ourselves. For most of us, creating the strong…

Take Nothing. Hold it up. Turn it in your hand. Have a good, long stare. Nothing, in spite of its bad press, is really quite something – especially when compared to the alternatives. So many of the things that press around us filling our time and space are so bland and pointless that emptiness becomes…

by Kevin Carrel Footer In La Boca, the river has shed its customary brown livery and turned gray. You would think that a river would remain one color, not change like a chameleon, but you would be wrong. The Rio de la Plata is a shape-shifter, writhing and cavorting before your eyes. On land, the…

by Kevin Carrel Footer He ran his fingers across the wooden table because he wanted to feel something real again, something that connected him to the organic world. His fingertips feared splinters — admittedly, that was part of the thrill — but they found only worn smoothness as they traced the table’s edge. Wood was…