Once a friend asked me to write about rape in an email, so I wrote that it is a weapon of war that would not work here because partners do not give in to it; in fact, they would say it is infidelity in relationships.

Our painter man was killed by a bunch of snotty kids who were making fun of him. A gun went off. What is a noodle to do? He wasn't sitting alone in his world, anymore. Where was his famous straw hat? His trusty pipe? He desperately needed to smoke…

“Can I?” Lily asked. I gave her a nod. She tore at the package with greedy fingers. As the paper fell away to reveal yet another self-help volume, Lily cocked her head in a gesture of confusion and curiosity. Following her gaze to the lipstick-red

Didn't usually go to the parade because it was long and cold But only a few blocks from the apartment Maybe if the sun had warmed all up some

First he wrote it in wet cement at the intersection: “Tad Loves Kimberley,” with a big heart around it. He was real proud, you could see. But then later on that year, the graffiti began appearing everywhere, on all the store walls: “Kimberle

I’d met this crowd of drunken poets from San Francisco Even though this was smack dab in the middle of winter Smack dab in the middle of the flattened Illinois plains Why they all left San Francisco I’ll never completely understand But there we we

You just watch, the schoolteachers’ll be next and then you’ll see shit go down. Imagine what happens when a fifth-grader sees his teacher getting frog-marched through a crowd on YouTube.

It’s just a joke, give them a poke, electric jigger in the hand

and I can't help it if it is. I know it won't stay that way for long, but for now that's all I've got to work with, shining in my window, made of all eight fingers and a couple of thumbs. But the latest pushy words still want to give…

"I found a dead bunny one morning. This was about three weeks ago. Its tiny round pom-pom of a tail was missing."

On top of the refrigerator is a small wooden box

In its own defense against what is too concrete the mind allows a magical thought--

I am running for only one thing now. For Katy.

Reading at Menlo Park Senior Center, old people falling asleep leaning to the left in their chairs, all in the same direction.

After like forever I remembered Seth was there, too. He was still on the levee's edge, but had drawn his legs up and crossed them, Indian-style. All of a sudden he was laughing.