Most read stories

Miss Edna's Lace

19711971 views22 comments00 favs

When Elvis died, I felt so empty that I headed straight for Jimmy Choo's, but quietly, with the half-veil of my pillbox hat draped low over my face. I didn't want to draw attention to my vintage Dior mourning outfit, since I normally wear pants, even here. The voices…

Jesus Had a Tat

19711971 views88 comments44 favs

Jesus Freaks will go tat head... crowns of thorns for their noggins and so on. Christ had one too...

Mr. Twitchy

19711971 views22 comments11 fav

I used to think the world was fucked and it was up to me and me alone to see it unfucked. That's really what I used to think, but I've been trying to work on that. It's not a particularly flattering characteristic I have. I'm trying to be more positive.

Before California Fell into the Sea

19711971 views22 comments11 fav

The trail wound through oak trees and climbed up a hill. The sun was high and hot whenever we came out from the cover of the trees. We stopped under a tree. “OK old man,” Leda said. She came to me and kissed me. Then she was unbuttoning my pants and kne

Muslin

19711971 views1515 comments99 favs

Outside I see the daytime moon, and it is faint as a fingerprint. My cousins have up-turned the biggest rocks and removed all the Sow bugs. The land is damp and red, and the trees feel wet to the center.

Caprice Classic

19711971 views22 comments00 favs

A cloud of light, white smoke floated out of the driver’s side window. Nate and Zach sat on the front bench seat, talked, and puffed away. “Breath in and say Mom is coming,” said Zach.

Blueberries

19711971 views66 comments11 fav

Cold water shocked Ernest's face. The evening with Gracie had his nerves hot and popping. She was his fifth date and the closest to his memory of Sadie in college so far. He looked up at himself in the bathroom mirror with his mouth agape. Redness flooded…

The Garden Heaters Of Kilburn

19701970 views22 comments00 favs

when women’s hair shrinks into tight curly balls and sits on top of their heads like scrunches of wool, blowing in the wind, hanging from the mouths of recently shot deer.

Migration

19701970 views2020 comments1313 favs

She offers the girl a seat, asks her to stay for a minute, but she can’t, she just came by to say hello, and don’t you like my new raincoat?

'Bout Apples

19701970 views11 comment22 favs

Sawyer walked toward the lone house with the sentinel trees. Behind him there were no tracks in the snow.

Class

19701970 views55 comments11 fav

Class (appears in my book Breaking it Down; no journal publication) When your neighbor James Frehley cusses you out for hanging a block and tackle from the silver maple in your front lawn, begin to pull the engine from your Galaxie anyway, smile and nod…

Our Story in Ten Photographs

19701970 views2727 comments1818 favs

1. The ghost that photographs my wife and me has a peculiar sense of lighting. In this one, we are sitting at the kitchen table of our old apartment. The table is made of glass. There is nothing on the table except our elbows. She has lowered her head between her…

another night, another dream

19691969 views11 comment22 favs

She can tell you seven things she doesn’t love about her face.

A Country of Husbands

19691969 views1010 comments77 favs

The first husband was young and lovely. He had a little nose and long fingers he used for things like planting begonias in my clay pot. I did not do flowers. So that was nice.

A Body Divided, 5

19691969 views00 comments00 favs

Physical therapy was on the agenda every morning, first thing. A nurse would come to my room from the basement floor where they did physical therapy. She'd wrap me in a blanket and put me into a wheelchair, even though it was obvious I didn't need one to

Noah's Ark, NYC

19691969 views44 comments22 favs

Two by two they come walking down 7th Ave girl with girl boy and girl boy and boy two pigeons strolling side by side two robins two crows walking stiffly like two pieces of anthracite coal two spiders two dogs sniffing each oth

Thick Rib of the Lamentation Animal

19691969 views55 comments66 favs

This violin of oneself, this rough strum of I, arc of wing over thick rib. This masturbatory chirping like the meat of God clenched in your teeth, an apostrophe giving aloneness possession over the inarticulate, a bridge between chords.

The Messenger

19691969 views77 comments11 fav

Sophie didn't stop for lunch when she worked. She showed up first in the morning and worked through until the last package was delivered. She pedaled from building to building and walked quickly, at just shy…

Human Frailty

19691969 views1717 comments1212 favs

Conceptio culpa Nasci pena Labor vita Necesse mori

Milton wrote his best lines blind

19681968 views22 comments00 favs

the unhealthiness of obsession and control until the lines burn bright

The Damp Place

19681968 views88 comments55 favs

As long as he could still take the stairs, he would go down there to be with the memories that each piece held. He knew that their time was about up, because his was too. His wife had already gone, and even before that she had long stopped using the washe

The Fish, the Fisherman, and the Sea

19681968 views44 comments11 fav

My father is remarkably clever. That is, for a rundown, henpecked fisherman. He has caught me again. He has me slung over his back in a rickety lobster trap and I can hear him huffing and the water in him sloshing and though I can't see his face, I imagine it is ruddied…

The Brazen Bull

19681968 views99 comments44 favs

History is replete with brutally imaginative techniques of torture and execution, but I am the only death machine that doubles as a musical instrument.

Missed

19671967 views1313 comments1515 favs

How I felt in Ireland.

Opening Line

19671967 views44 comments33 favs

I cannot read one more award winning novel by a female Asian author about the atrocities committed against their childhood, she thought. Then she sat down with her trusty yellow pad and Papermate fineline to write the next lyrical story of a female Asian writer and the…

Fragment

19671967 views2424 comments1313 favs

see the man

The Sky is Simply White

19671967 views1414 comments88 favs

The rain is no terrible epitaph

patti, did art get us?

19671967 views1111 comments88 favs

often as i lie awake i wonder are you awake too?/ we never had any children, he said ruefully/ that summer i cried so much that robert called me soakie/ robert, dying: creating silence

Woman Gives Birth At Cafe, Refuses To Leave Until Latte Finished

19661966 views11 comment00 favs

There was a man crying, walking his dog and a woman drove by on a flat tire They brought coffee to the tables in large glasses on white saucers There’d be long silver spoons with which to stir in strong

21stC irl (easy action) party

19661966 views2121 comments1313 favs

Nobody took pics.