Hoop dreams of a younger sister
My first basketball court was a smooth, square patch of concrete between the one-car garage and the rest of the dusty rock and gravel…
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Funeral for Jesus
Children gathered around the flowered bier and sang dirges. Burst, his mother cried to the silent God who called her to this. Hidden women…
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Muscle and bone
I was sitting at the kitchen table on a rare lazy Saturday morning—no swimming lessons, no birthday parties, no sleepovers. My wife was still…
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Pray and work
I’m debating whether I can summon the energy to get out of bed between snippets of NPR on the clock radio. Through my bedroom…
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Your shambling walk becomes a sacrament I pray to every morning. And when you wake, I see you there, in my imagination, pulling on…
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On roadkill, biking, and idiomatic English
My mom says, “I want to start a blog of pictures of roadkill. Just pictures of roadkill, and that grimace they all have. I’ll…
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Body Reborn
Mixed Media and Acrylic (2014) Being a self-taught artist, the idea of drawing the human body always has intimidated me. However, I used figures…
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Self-Portrait
from the series Disabilities and Sexuality (2012) My name is Robert Andy Coombs and I am a ballsy, homosexual, quadriplegic Yooper from Michigan’s majestic…
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Why I am a Dolly Parton feminist
Editor’s note: Each Thursday, we feature a throwback piece from Topology’s predecessor, catapult magazine. In this essay, Katie Hoogendam, lauds the subversive celebrity of…
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What We Leave Behind
Battle Creek, Michigan (2016) I remember once wanting to do a project on the paperwork that runs through our lives, and how bureaucracy strips…
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