Sunday Reader:I found this poem as a draft in my manuscripts, dated Sept. 28, 2008. I'm not sure if it's a poem or a sardonic joke. Sadly, it still fits the situation.

Sunday Reader:I'm standing in line to return a Christmas present from my father when I see them there. Just like in the pictures. He is sitting in the child's seat of the shopping cart and she is gripping the handles of it and making wide-eyed faces so he'll laugh as their mother hands a receipt to the cashier.

Sunday Reader:They say it ain't over til the fat lady sings and in my case it was just like that. Only the fat lady was Mrs. Thelma Byers and the song was "Just a Closer Walk with Thee."

Sunday Reader:We are haunted by departed loved ones, but with less pain as the years pass, and maybe with less frequency until some change of weather, sound, taste, object, or dream again puts them vividly in front of us.

Sunday Reader:Having not slept since finding Charlie's suicide note, Olivia swallowed two pills with a sip of room-temperature coffee. She sank into the sofa, pulling an old quilt around her.

Sunday Reader:After my father's funeral, Barbara, his latest wife, gave me a box, said he would have wanted me to have it. It didn't look like much -- unvarnished pine, about the size of a shoe box. I waited until I was alone that night, back in my hotel room, before opening the box.

Sunday Reader:Governor's School East meets at Meredith College in Raleigh for six weeks each summer.

Sunday Reader:Here at Read, we like to see the expansion of arts in all venues. The Raleigh Quarterly is such a venture, providing an outlet for local visual and literary artists.

Sunday Reader:'Giant" is the poem that almost never was. It came along during my first year of serious poetry writing, and my early drafts of the poem were written in free verse.

Sunday Reader:Now, when I see teenage girls laughing. When I see them loosed on a summer evening -- their limbs tanned and gossamer, their imagined freedom radiating like nuclear light -- I can't help but fast-forward two decades or more. I know the curve of their bones has already made an imperceptible bow to gravity. I see the decay in slow motion, even or especially through those stunning and immortal years.

Sunday Reader:My husband Don and I celebrated our 50th anniversary last summer. This poem came along soon after as I was thinking of moons he and I had gazed at, kissed under, wept under, marveled under, yelled at each other under.

Sunday Reader:The last time I visited my grandparents, they were in their 90s and neither was well. One night, as I was setting their table for dinner, I found an unexpected treasure. For the remainder of my visit, my mind kept wandering back to it. The bittersweet discovery reminded me of the fragility of the future while letting me step for a moment into a comforting past.