1997 30 18
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I dreamed that coffee grounds had spilled on my Buffet. There was another clarinet, a silver one, that belonged to a man not in the room, that was clean of debris.
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199610
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Yellow tape marks a walkway that was previously unknown. Caution, caution. Lounge turned waiting room for a ballroom turned infirmary. An entrance, an exit, caution, caution. The line is of amusement park ride length. But no roller coaster at the end, only an antidote…
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199622
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Her face had that strange preserved quality Maybelle saw in many aging Boomer women — like an old toy never removed from its packaging.
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1996129
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“Lightning has more longevity than I,”
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19961815
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Together / they peeled and fed each other pink fruit, / ordered expensive pink beef, went on / vacations and viewed pink sunsets / on paradise beaches.
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199633
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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
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199623
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Follow me around a bit.
Let me walk you through the rooms, structures, and clouds of my being that reveal junk drawers of "collectibles."
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19961310
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sacred ground bleached with the salt of bitter tears
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199585
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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
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199583
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“Who says?” she purred in reply
“They all do” he countered smiling , chewing on an ice cube
“All of them, huh?”
She leaned forward, raising a wicked left eyebrow and whispered,
“And just who are they, anyway?”
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199555
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“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.”
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199521
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time. Night after night he's up, restless. What if she knew his plans? If only he'd bypass his miscalculations and slip through
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199521
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For ten minutes I would have to sit perfectly still on the edge of her bed, thinking of Road Runner and the Flash and wishing I could do anything but sit there with my feet in warm, foamy water.
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1995104
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What happens to a town when all of its songbirds go on strike?
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199552
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You’re mad as a hatter she said. Eons, eras of epochal proportions go by before you call me. I said recalibrate your linear thinking, incubator baby. I whispered permutations of wonder, told her secrets only the sufis know. We ate French goat cheese lac
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1994129
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in which creative destruction holds the heads of entire populations beneath the surface of the water in bathtubs until the bubbles stop
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199400
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At the edge of the forest, his sister began to complain about how everybody—their mother and father and all of her friends included—hated her. It was exasperating, the light she sometimes put herself in. The fact of the matter was that she received more
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199472
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He had long since quit listening to the incessant clanging of the bell. He stood, ringing the bell, squinting into the setting sun, nauseous from the car exhaust, his body aching for alcohol.
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19943315
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To envy faith, to envy love --//
is there a fate more hateful? Choices/
scatter like stars. Too many.
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19941311
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You were busy, moving, alert inconstant motion; packingbooks, clothes, paintings;deciding yes to this, no to that. I was simply tryingto settle somewhere in the space.We'd known it for years when things were in place. Now, this abrupt interruption of…
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1993107
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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,
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199387
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After school watching American Bandstand with my two best friends, all three of us lusting after Bunny Gibson who’s all of sixteen, stacked, and very fucking hot.
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199386
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She sees Connick Jr. now has a microphone. He is singing “All of Me” as if he meant her to take all of him.
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199332
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your olive-pitting thumbs
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19932114
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I don't want / to write about the body indulged, desires / denied, tortures invented, pleasures innate
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199242
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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.
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1992106
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—Pretty tulips, said the woman.
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199274
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Juniper Mélange was a cat person, not a dog person. Truly detested when she perceived falseness in another person. She wore glasses and drank tea. Had dark straight hair and light skin. She dressed conservatively and would watch the sky most days. She wou
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199211
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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.
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199254
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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
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