The stone floor was cold and the sky above had a purple haze. The setting sun hid beyond the trees outside the crumbled walls. Vines reached over the well as if it grabbed it like hand.

Mars' circled state is slain, no bird of Jove That roosts protected in its green youth's flush; Its storms no more bring moistness from above, From blue beads cradled in one thunder's flash. The god of War was husband once to Love: Her arms were …

It's the outrage of the red monkey at her feet, And the nude thirteen-year-old woman sitting upright In the blue velvet chair, and the hints of blue at her navel, And at her lips and belly and crotch, that so upset Paris. Gauguin had his nerve

Almost on cue, Xavier emerges and is in the vendor’s face. “X,” as he is known around here, is indoctrinating the obvious newbie on the merits of showing up earlier and the logistics of placeholders and markers.

It’ll die in there and the stairwell’ll stink for weeks, Greg says in the car. We’re quiet, considering that.

“Hello, this is Natalie Silverman, I’ve been tying to get my prescription filled for over a week. ... Maybe you recall, you did my brain surgery last spring? I’m sorry that there’s still a balance of over eight thousand dollars. I hope you don’t hold tha

Steel beams. Welds painted over green. Yellow numbers of some sort. Old phone booths. Tags on the walls. I looked up and saw where bits of water fall down from the overpass. Pigeon up there. Washing his wings or something like that. Greyness. I was in a truck.…

Howard needed to finish this time. As his marriage slid further down the sinkhole toward divorce, it was important to him that his affair be successful.

THERE'D been mutterings on the shareholders' board about a dodgy deal shoved through. In the rush after the towers' thing to get out relevant stock an executive producer had signed off on some film school kid for five big ones to shoot a…

His mother was not an aw-come-here-honey-and-give-me-a-hug type mom. She was the kind of mother who, if you had some kind of problem, would suggest that perhaps it might be a good idea to volunteer (she was really big on volunteering) at some sort of orga

The barista with the fake rainbow nails and amazing cleft. . . .

Eventually, all the windows on the street went dark, each small house cloaking its occupants in a world unto itself, soundproofed and emotionally remote.

But who am I kidding. We aren’t in love. Being in love is for high schoolers or middle aged divorcees exploring their sexuality. Our love is real, sweaty, backwards, forwards, angry, trusting. We love as you only can after seeing someone at their best and

After each piece cancelled the other the generals folded up their checkerboards,

There was a children’s lit theme running through the party. Aside from Annemarie’s costume, there was a Harry Potter, a Pinocchio, and a Grinch.