Most read stories

Caprice Classic

19791979 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.

The Leg

19791979 views3131 comments1111 favs

They all looked for Vic's leg after the accident.

A MAMMOTH UNDERTAKING

19791979 views11 comment11 fav

My best friend and roommate Eliza woke up one morning with the sudden conviction that she had to become very fat, as soon as possible.

Breathless

19781978 views1616 comments1111 favs

I sit down next to a youngster on the couch. “Would you like to see?” she asks. “See what?” I reply....

'Bout Apples

19781978 views11 comment22 favs

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

Fragment

19781978 views2424 comments1313 favs

see the man

The Lost Boys

19781978 views2121 comments1919 favs

Every day hurts, just a little, but not enough

Class

19781978 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…

The Illuminated Dream

19781978 views11 comment11 fav

It broke through the surface of the suburban world and shattered it into pieces, fragments of dreams and amazement. She was not the same as she had been a moment before. It was an epiphany she couldn't put her finger on.

Miss Edna's Lace

19771977 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…

DRIP

19771977 views2020 comments1111 favs

...you lick you ice cream, little pink tongue like a cat's, flick, flick... lick fast, girl, the heat's gonna melt it...

Mr. Twitchy

19771977 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.

A Body Divided, 5

19771977 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

Before California Fell into the Sea

19771977 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

Hot Cocoa and Bourbon

19771977 views00 comments00 favs

Walking into the living room and next to the tree, he handed his wife Kathy her Minnie and plopped himself on the couch. Their three kids, two girls and the youngest a boy, tore through the wrapping paper like a pack of rabid wolves tearing through a deer

Milton wrote his best lines blind

19761976 views22 comments00 favs

the unhealthiness of obsession and control until the lines burn bright

A Country of Husbands

19761976 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.

The Damp Place

19761976 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

Migration

19761976 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?

Opening Line

19761976 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…

The Sky is Simply White

19761976 views1414 comments88 favs

The rain is no terrible epitaph

Europe, 1960

19761976 views2323 comments2222 favs

The painting was on loan from a gallery in Chicago. We stood there connecting the dots.

Josephine Skinny Jeans: Chapter 2

19761976 views00 comments00 favs

Sometimes I have really violent dreams where I smash Libby’s face in with a liquor bottle, a brick, a mounted boar’s head... really whatever my brain makes available to me. I always wake up satisfied.

The Messenger

19761976 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…

The Truthmobile

19761976 views33 comments22 favs

She's had a magnetic sign made for the side of her Honda, TRUTHMOBILE, simple and elegant. Maybe too simple; she's worried it suggests a religious affiliation.

Elevator Neighbors (from The New Yorker)

19761976 views33 comments44 favs

“Do you think she paints?” “Her face, a little, But don’t you find her kind of bony?”

Jesus Had a Tat

19751975 views88 comments44 favs

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

Ten years later

19751975 views55 comments44 favs

Are you asleep? He says. Wake up.

'The Good Life' Not by Bud Smith

19751975 views1111 comments77 favs

I'm trying to read a Poetry in Motion poem on there wall of a crowded electric train

Ornamental Onion

19751975 views77 comments33 favs

i imagined myself & i was phlox saxifrage pompom ranunculus poppy anemone ornamental onion rattlesnake red ribbon nerine & i loved the painted tongue & i wore the rattlesnake