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from Flatlander's Suite

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Under nervously flickering fluorescent lights / your name will grow / fed by the tongues of Those Who Never Leave

Annals of the Naked Rowdies #78

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A true Rowdies fan begins every conversation about the band with a legend. She would be impressed if he knew the story.

A Staple Diet

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Whenever Mommy was gone, Josh Forcett's father made him eat staples, often by the spoonful.

Self Portrait with Google

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Try it with and without/ middle name or middle initial.// Try different keywords.

Ibby's Falafel

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Dark hung over the night like an occupation force. Across the street a Cuban diner fought it off with green and yellow neon lights, Latin rhythm beating through the air.

The Scarab

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He thought the scarab was bad luck. I knew too little about omens to argue.

The President is Giving the State of the Nation Address Today

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But the world is smaller when I see it / from the crook of your neck.

Ennui of Wings

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Does flight exhilarate the sparrows

Marriage

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Freshly fucked, Shirley exhaled enjoying the lingering sensations. She always felt lighter after a good orgasm, and this had been one for the record books.

Trophy

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I remember ...all the teenagers offered no-longer favored CDs, last year's cell phones, third-place trophies, team jerseys, played-out videogame cartridges, and candy-colored miniature stuffed animals...

Lunch Bird

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The bird studies me, we lock stares, with no care for who blinks first, birds don’t do macho stand-off.

Snowdrops

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'Do you feel that, my little one?' Stillness. Calm. I felt the baby move her tiny little feet and smiled.

A Tragedy In Three Acts (St. Petersburg Blues)

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His thought was shattered then by the horrible grind of the telephone in the hall. Surely not for me, he thought. One of the other tenants has a friend who’s landed vipivka, no doubt after 39 straight days of hunt. Booze is so damnably hard to find

the snake charmer

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God forbid you should break one of the camps precious “rules,” which were more or less like the Ten F'ing Commandments around there.

Adultery and Africa

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“What would you think if I committed adultery?” She pauses very briefly before replying. “What, you got time on your hands?”

The Flute Player

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The man who plays his flute every day under the archway near Powell station is not very good. He never plays a real tune, just a series of random notes. There is no rhythm or melody either. In fact, it's not even a flute he…

Ghost Searches Downtown

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No one told a story.

Journal of Puritan Minister, Jon Sorrim: Fragment 1

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It was the first time I had ever seen a possession.

Piggy Bank

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He shivered in his robe and pajama pants as the showdown with the piggy bank continued on this dark winter’s night. He couldn’t resist the cute dots for eyes, the stubby legs and perked up ears.

The Bird

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We lived on the edge of a tiny Iowa town, and picked corn fields were steps away.

Lewd in the Library!

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The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue just came out, and all over America librarians are flipping through its pages and rolling their eyes. The swimsuit issue, which isn't actually about swimwear at all, but, is, instead, about young, beautifully shaped female…

Seascape

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They had been wintering on the Cape under gunmetal skies...

Burma

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Our mothers died in childbirth. Taken in by the village, our new mothers taught us to wave at the river boats, to sell our trinkets to tourists. They offered us coins of a foreign currency and little pathetic smiles. By nightfall, our fingers bled. Then came…

Emotional Gentrification - excerpt Single Stroke Seven

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Sunday, Nolan and I drop by the ice rink on 10th and Alma to watch the amateur hockey leagues battle it out in an unspoken yet assumed class war: the buff, unemployed rink bums who can grind ice, cross-check, and stick handle like the pros, versus the dou

Clarinet

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It’s beautiful to look at and to hold/ though true musicians would be appalled/ by the black plastic

How To Write Funny

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I've never really been impressed with authors that write long teary-eyed novels about people dying of terrible diseases or uplifting stories about the armless boy who made the wrestling team.

I Am Not A Careful Reader

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What's the weirdest thing you've ever used as a bookmark? I work in a library. I've seen that, and more.

Turkey Hunt

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While I was still new at Black & Twigg, shortly before Thanksgiving, Percy brought me a handwritten memo to type, the subject “Turkey Hunt,” addressed to all Black & Twigg employees in the San Francisco office from management. It said that the firm…

Hawk

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Squirrels and mice fear her shadow

at night, she comes

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My head was swimming with nicotine, the coldness of the first snow, and unfinished love thoughts.