This time the mountain climber does not attain the summit.

—Pretty tulips, said the woman.

I’ve previously tried the old-fashioned route to get my books reviewed, calling up editors, asking friends who work at newspapers and magazines to put in a good word for me, stalking . . . I mean, contacting freelancers.

These are the three facts of my life.

That's demeaning enough, but not as hard to take as the customers. They're all jaded hipsters, thumb diddling smartphone freaks, pretending their online interactions actually count as relationships and that “tweets” are real conversations. It's sad, reall

Brazilian girls yammer with their book bags up against my leg.

We’ve clicked/ and tapped ‘til dawn/ and our exhaustion meet,

It’s been stored away in the cedar chest since my mother put it there in the early 60’s, well, 1962 to be exact. She was a careful woman, but over these many years the bow has flattened, and the wind-up parts have corroded some from non-use. Oh, the

I scowl at her through an opioid haze. "Armitage Shanks is my real name." The clerk snickers. "You mum must have really wanted you to be pissed on from cradle to grave, eh?"

I am a small cottage up on the hill. Every morning, I open my windows and my front door. First enters dawn which turns the walls blue, followed by the sun laying straws of wheat on my table. Inside my cottage the day lights up the dark corners while the lamps go quietly…

gravel coughing up tires at 90 miles an hour and just getting under way

Uncle Tee, a dog handler, taught all the camp children their basics: how to "make change" from a $10-bill, how to slip a hand into ladies' purses, and how to make their smiles warm and endearing.

Children imagine dying all the time, especially when someone in their life, someone close, has died. Children's games often include pretend dying, flopping around after being shot for about three minutes, choking, falling to the ground and…

You stretch my heart / in sacred ways

“No one likes an indecisive sexual partner.”