It was cold in the church. The Lutherans were freezing to death. The Catholics brought their winter coats.

cymbals guy — another way of saying hey turdshitface haul your skinnyass to the front of the bus.

Over his usual ham sandwich and skim milk for lunch Uncle Waldo used to always say, “Going out in the dead of night without a flashlight is dangerous.” But I knew what I was doing. After dark, I'd slip out and sneaker on down the path to take a dip in a…

Carl and Dolly were actors. Dolly was offered the lead in a porno film, but she turned it down.

I'm mucked now for sure. No one's going to discover my difficult poems in a locked away desk drawer somewhere after the dying fact. I remember how it feels to be knocked out by someone standing next to me in a simple white dress. This…

Backs in the grass, legs straight, bare feet resting at angles, Rachel and I, both of us seven, looked up through the oak limbs that made black lightning cracks across a blinding blue sky. Three hula hoops sat trapped in the trees’ sprawled grasp.

Last night in the shower, I felt only vaguely aware that something in me had changed.

Sundays after Mass, Sister Edburga gathered the team in the shower room, we stripped naked in a circle, held hands and said a prayer we’d win our game. A boy no one knew walked alongside her with a box full of jockstraps.

Where I grew up, you did not venture casually into ocean waters.

Requires one of those leaps.

“I’ve been standing across the street for fifteen minutes. I was walking by and saw you weren’t moving. So I watched—you didn’t move at all.”

You slit your eyes and flick your cigarette in front of an oncoming car. I see how easily you could be that oncoming car.

master carvers do not reduce with carving.

A plain oval face, opaque except for a birthmark streaking the right cheek like chicken shit.

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