I let Archer throw a handful of chocolate chips into the oatmeal that was simmering on the stove. It started to froth, quickly becoming a little mushroom cloud on top of the pot. A spasm of fear passed across Archer's face, which was…

And in so saying, we shoot a glance at the calendar, a swear and a prayer escaping our lips simultaneously. The home stretch of the year that´s in it is an uphill fogbound chicane of black ice and oncoming trucks. Anyone with half a mind to jump in…

“Have the tomatoes come in yet?”“Dottie…”Mrs. Dorothea Tilden pointed a trembling finger at Harriet.“You promised me tomatoes, Harry.”Harriet put her hands on her hips, a stance Dorothea knew well. One more sharp word meant fight; two…

no fun piles for kids and dogs to tunnel through

"It goes to infinity and back.That is how much I love you".She looked down into the sandplopped down and made a snow angel,Pushing the mudwith her arm and legs,like wipersof a caron a rainy day"Auntie ... Auntie,How much I love you".

William Shakespeare (a surname that meant "wanker" back in the day, by the way)

Wheel turning, round and round again

if death has an opposite this must be it

The old lady is losing her memory. She forgets people's names yet so familiar to her. A little sheepish, she takes her basket and walks to the village. Just like when her legs were young, suntanned, shapely and attractive. Along the footpath, by the shop windows, over the…

In the graph of life or death, two axes will inevitably meet. Will it be as jarring as two sharp and well-hewn axes colliding?

"Love is just a word I've heard when things are being said"...--J.T.That thing that is empty now is me. I never thought I'd disappear, so crazily far from being myself. The love key has been thrown away, dropped without much fanfare. I carried…

muse of my heart, with each palace in love: / when Januaries lash with storm and sleet, / their dread dark nights all muffled in bright snows, / will you find coals to warm your purpled feet?

Through your veins

Later, at home, on the internet, I assemble fragments of street celebrations from cities one coast to the other. I watch them and listen in the compressed fidelity of computer speakers. How strangely things feel.

The trash is full. Again. I open the bathroom trash—because the diaper genie is stuffed—but there’s no room. I try the kitchen next. The lid swings open, catapulting carrot shavings onto the floor. I lay the diaper on the counter for later.

I'm pulled in by the music like a rogue wave and he has no idea I'm drowning...

You had to put up with Sunday drivers You had to love children All children, all of them! This is what it took to be God It wasn’t fun You had to be patient, sometimes You had to pretend to look the other way You needed to lose your he