I hear the car door slam. Steve, about to duck daddy-duty: Just gonna take a run to the Quickway. "Rudy," I say, "go get in the car. Tell Papo I said Wait."

Miguel's mom told everyone if you pressed your ear against the knot, Jesus would tell you special secrets.

“I don’t want to scare you,” the stewardess says, “but there are ten police officers waiting for you outside the plane.” I reach into the diaper bag and grab an Elmo raspberry/pear cereal bar, rip it open, take a bite, sip some apple juice fr

She stared unbreakingly, confident, knowing; and talked so close to my face I felt cornered. But her voice was something, low and smooth.

—Was it true, what you wrote in that poem? —Pretty true. —What do you mean “pretty true”? Was it true or wasn’t it? —It was as close as you get to truth in poems.

I am a dog – four legs, a tail, a carefree enough manner, I do this, I do that, get into fights, sniff the ground and so on

“The Boy from Thuringia” is part of a series of stories collectively called The History of Adoption. In it, a middle-aged man sets out rather obsessively to write a comprehensive history of the adopted child. In his attempts to finally begin this im

I walk back home, alone and without the bus fare. Distancing myself from the shadows that float interminably against the drowsy sun. Where frightened boys often roam, going in circles against the long lines of epitaphs and gravestones. Puzzling…

She was a sucker punch.

I didn’t kiss Odgeir because I fancied him, I kissed him because I knew other people fancied him.

It came up heads so he is going first. He puts on a condom and gets in

Oh I'm melting all right, into a foul vapor rising from a dead volcano, not even able to spit fire, but only cold old frozen rock like dribbles of putrid plasma.

On September 12th, 2011, the ban on deer hunting became official. Apparently, the hunting and killing of deer had become too cruel. The ban had been a long time in the making. Ever since man began hunting deer way back in the day—somewhere between a fe

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

The first photo above shows plainly: five children dressed in suits and dresses. There are three girls. Each girl wears a yellow sundress with chiffon ribbons. The boys have been terrorizing them--the girls, not the dresses.