Most discussed stories

Years After

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Years After she can go home.

Instinct

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They coo and gurgle in the warmth of twig and down. They are so delicate, hard to look at without thinking of death. I tell them I want for them chief among all things strength, speed, resilience.

Goat

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But we tell them to each other. We feel we are riding on a boat in the well. That is our secret. We aren't. We know we aren't.

THE RUNAWAY (I)

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Her purse still hangs on the knob by the door, and seeing it is all that keeps Josh from freaking out because he knows she can’t go too far or too long without her purse.

Mr. Kunitz, Mr. Lowell, Mrs. Craig

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Although I think we can easily work it out because we are not here in the Yale graduate school, and diction is the theme of the story. Diction is a choice in language.

Big Hotel Inside of a Jungle Brain

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He's not something you'll want, waiting for you, inside your living room's ear. Go and see your family. Breathe the broad daylight whenever you can. I got lost in some free form dog caves. That's all. That's no path to aspire to …

Kazooed

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"I've been on eight blind dates in three days," she tells me. I can't quite work the math out, but somehow the combination of her wildly undulating eyebrows and harsh vocal tone manage to convince me."I can play the kazoo," I tell her. It's my one saving grace--the thing…

Hunger

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It took all four of his kids to convince my father to pull the plug. Mom's car crash had left her a vegetable, but of course he hung on. Once they withdrew life support, she was gone in ten minutes. The first thing our father said was that he was hungry. He felt…

Our Own

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The world is upon us. The only thing that matters Now is if you are willing to be seen by them. Many moths Will be hidden by simply gathering on the bark Of the one tree, but this will not sustain you if you Do not also have the courage…

This Is How You Make The Bed

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He disrobes; shoes, socks, shirt, belt, pants. He smells of hard work. The nude whisper of everything else.

Beyond the Voice

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We might as well be honest: we’re talking about the two of us here. No one, not even the cameraman, had any idea even after all these years. For more than a decade we’d been bringing the six o’clock news into a medium-almost-major market region.

You, me, now, then

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If I seemed disappointed after our conversation, then, for the record, that was never the case.

Far Star Girl

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She thought maybe an angel had called out her name. She wasn't sure. She was waiting for her older sister to return with Jujy Fruits and bonbons. The theater, neither light nor dark, was to Cassie's ten-year-old mind, an appropriate-enough setting for a v

Testament/ National Poetry Month, 2013/ 25 Poems

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Small stones/ skipped across/ still water ripple

Manifesto

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I write poems.

The Toy Store

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Figures are a strip tease.

Odds Are

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We're on a bench in the park under some trees close to the carousel when she tells me I can't count on having a career as a professional gambler.

Kinky Eggs

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She plucks two eggs from the carton, weighs and measures them with the cup of her palm, the curve of her fingers.

Bow Ties & Brooklyn Dressing

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collars of obedience / discarded in the pyre / with draft cards and bras

Love Cycle – a serial

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1. How can one begrudge the cracking open of a heart?When the lava love fire loaded insanity of self-control disappearsAnd the raw spewing beginsYou better be ready for the truthIt ain't gonna be prettyYou'll wish you were deadYou won't recognize where you areYou'll be…

Out of Time

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I was so high on the not knowing, I thought, you will love me for my confusion. And so I allowed myself to reach further inward than either of us felt comfortable. I imagined a delicious vanilla pudding at the core of my exploration, sweet and satisfying enough for me to…

Imagining the Reading as Effacement

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What the spaces say// can be heard in the short/ and longer silences

Where is Now and When is There?

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The floor dissolves beneath us, pierced by lasered/ glare of countless eye-beams.

Peggy Guggenheim Visits her Favorite Question

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Q: “How many husbands have you had, Mrs. Guggenheim?” A: “D’you mean my own, or other people’s?”

The Artist's Conk

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Whenever talk dies, or darkness gathers too closely around the breakfast table, everyone knows the list of ritual activities we can brightly suggest to skip the day forward.

Mississippi

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“I won't live here,” Beth said, waving her hand to indicate the small Southern town in which they were having dinner—the most delicious fried chicken either of them had ever tasted—in a restaurant located in an antebellum mansion. She looked…

The Oddest Thing Ever Found in a Pocket

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On an October day in 1909 Mrs. Prudence O'Kannady, industrious wife of Mr. Joseph Patrick O'Kannady of Corn Falls, Nebraska, discovered, while sorting clothing for the wash, in the pocket of a set of dungarees belonging to her youngest son Rufus, a tiny human head. When…

Layers on a Cold Night

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Later that night, he lay his shivering children in his own bed, the bed that betrayed and abandoned him just a few years ago. It will protect them now.

The Sun is Here

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and I revel in the fact. There are other facts at work and play, but I'm hanging out with this one because it is my day off and I'm listening to music and writing poems. I like the bright appearance coming from the bedroom…

Hero Song

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paper cuts, an old film unraveled from its reel, risking exposure.