Most read stories

Spades

20152015 views1212 comments44 favs

all / the secret letters/ ever dreamed up

Avatar Of Chaos

20152015 views55 comments55 favs

He has one good eye and is missing the other. The socket of his missing eye squints with a disturbing and unfathomable insight.

Polaris

20152015 views1010 comments77 favs

Things get lost in Big John, too. I see the other guys throw jokes about his size at his body that wedge their way into his armpits or into the wrinkles of his laugh lines and disappear. I’m not sure if it all disappears to remind us how small we are,

Starspeak

20152015 views44 comments22 favs

So if we all have an idea what goes down when the young person at the cash register (the registerista?) asks, “Can I help you?” then we all know there’s a different way to habla at Seattle’s gift to the world.

Imago Mundi

20152015 views1212 comments99 favs

in which creative destruction holds the heads of entire populations beneath the surface of the water in bathtubs until the bubbles stop

Something for you

20142014 views66 comments11 fav

Bearing the smell of paper on her fingertips. Ink in her hair.

The Tall Man’s Secret

20142014 views88 comments55 favs

For the next two hours, Ed goes nonchalantly about his business, buck naked the whole time. He putters around the house, writes e mails, waters plants, vacuums the rug and sweeps the porch. I pretend to ignore his nudity

Prairie Rose

20142014 views77 comments44 favs

Every Friday night she gets liberated at The Haymarket Square doing a bunny hop or a do si do with ex-members of The Saint Augustine Women's Choir. She remembers how as kids, shy or awkward in dresses, their voices formed the harmony, the flight of something V-shaped…

Auden at Swarthmore

20142014 views1616 comments1212 favs

So I went to see the wrinkled and rumpled poet, who insisted on reading from memory, stumbling through his sheaf of poems.

Big Dipper

20142014 views55 comments55 favs

“You’re not in Saigon anymore, Mai Bi'ch,” I said, craning to read her name badge. “They’ll need to be much better than that if you want to stay in this country.”

Roomies

20142014 views22 comments00 favs

“I am NOT a hooker.” “What exactly are you, then?” Marlene raised her slim eyebrows. Her almond shaped eyes and high-cut bangs gave her the appearance of a 1950s Barbie doll. “Well…” I stirred my coffee and looked down. I wasn't sure wh

Grace Gladys Gibbons

20142014 views44 comments33 favs

Grace Gibbons is a way of life.

Pink

20142014 views1818 comments1515 favs

Together / they peeled and fed each other pink fruit, / ordered expensive pink beef, went on / vacations and viewed pink sunsets / on paradise beaches.

Post-Op

20142014 views1515 comments99 favs

She tells Tuesday's lover that there's nothing wrong with cheap thrills without anesthesia,

The Letter

20142014 views55 comments44 favs

You know how it is, one day a good friend sends you this long note telling you how-the-hell they are or aren't getting along in the frigging world

Cleverbot conversation RSC00206460

20142014 views11 comment11 fav

maybe if I bat my lashes just right, or look prim enough to fly, you just might touch me tonight, and the dream will pop and fizz and I will wake somewhere, your hands smoothing these lines of worry away.

Departure. Arrival. Return.

20142014 views2424 comments1515 favs

Put down your bazooka, Marianne.

The Silence of Harold

20142014 views1919 comments1111 favs

It's been sixteen days since I spoke with another soul. I don't mind much, but I know enough about people to know most would think I'm mighty odd. Muriel, for example. She'd be pissed as all get out. …

Food for Thought

20142014 views1313 comments1111 favs

I could never be a chef.Preparing creations that will merely be consumed.If I were a chef,I'd have to create dishes that required chewingand chewing and chewing.I'd find it better for my dishes to be destroyed in the mouth.Remembered for their…

The Widow's Morning

20132013 views11 comment11 fav

Whispers flew, like wild darts across the room. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Right then, it wasn’t my job to figure things out; it was my job to cry.

Under Water

20132013 views11 comment11 fav

When I was six, my father brought home a fishbowl. Look out for the inhabitants, he said. You can play Neptune in their microcosm of the sea.

Paper House

20132013 views1010 comments88 favs

Because if they’re wavering, it's about the coin, always about the coin.

The Sex Life of Your Mouth

20132013 views1010 comments00 favs

"What say we adjourn to the bedroom and I give you a little demonstration of sexual acrobatics?”

Happiness

20132013 views1717 comments99 favs

Can you find happiness in the middle of a kidney stone attack?

Visitation Hour

20132013 views55 comments11 fav

She watches too much VH1 for a five-year-old.

Mud

20132013 views33 comments33 favs

People ask me sometimes what it’s like to meet your wife when you’re six years old, and I have to admit now that I don’t really understand the question. Marla and I, we were just friends for most of that time. She made me laugh. I let her crib off my math

Poleward

20132013 views99 comments33 favs

We hit the road, headed west.

Frog Kissing

20132013 views44 comments22 favs

All right, so the frog I risked my lips on (not to mention the contents of my stomach) . . . .

Disparity

20132013 views1313 comments1010 favs

sacred ground bleached with the salt of bitter tears

The Woman Who Cut Down Her Husband

20122012 views1616 comments1414 favs

The woman carried a wooden log which was her husband into the house.