Most read stories

A Safe Distance

17491749 views77 comments44 favs

Poems, and Zebras

Still Strangers.

17491749 views88 comments55 favs

I didn’t question any of it and instead sat motionless as she dropped my wrists and walked away seconds later.

A Delicate and Ancient Art

17491749 views33 comments33 favs

He was a sushi chef, and he would spend hours in their kitchen practicing his knife skills, and the speed with which he can put that there and this in that and so on; and she would see him on the floor most mornings, still wearing that dirty, tattered ban

One Last Hurrah, #1

17491749 views1010 comments22 favs

She was about 35 or so and noticeably pregnant. She was near hysteria when she knocked on our apartment door, right across the street in L.A. from a convent. But she took one last desperate wild look at me, standing at the door. I saw the animal in her ey

Centipede

17491749 views22 comments11 fav

Five o’clock, and Madame choosing her evening legs. Elizabeth assisting. Elizabeth will continue to assist until midnight, despite the chaos, at which point the authorities will tell her such assistance is no longer necessary.

Salt

17491749 views44 comments22 favs

I imagined the crystals in my mouth. Salt flowers blooming on my tongue.

Forging

17481748 views1818 comments1313 favs

Taken by agents of the United States of America, Felix Six-Killer grows up at the Carlisle Indian School near Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. His hair is cut and oiled. His shirts are starched and creased. For months he is startled to find himself seated for…

Salt Water

17481748 views99 comments66 favs

A horizon shrinks a burden until it’s a seagull getting fat off vinegar fries. I’m in love with the way your mouth moves when you aren’t talking. When it fills with salt.

Very Short Stories And Pictures Of Ducks

17481748 views11 comment11 fav

...the loving and very painful hurt of our daily sustenance

GONE

17481748 views2020 comments1111 favs

The box thuds at your feet: mug, plant, wedding photo, the 25-year pen.

On Socks

17481748 views66 comments55 favs

There’s a hole in my sock, just large enough that my big toe keeps slipping out.

March

17481748 views1717 comments88 favs

Crows etc.

Archaeological Treasures Yet to Come

17481748 views00 comments00 favs

The museum’s catalog description changed much less than the painting over those years. He wasn’t curator-in-chief of catalog descriptions, however, that task went to a curator arriving by another door.

it’s a true story

17481748 views11 comment00 favs

My only celebrity anecdote involves seeing Barbara Bush in the back of the Presidential limo ...

Grief Has No Welcome Garment

17481748 views88 comments55 favs

Twice burned, it buries its graves.

Why We Need To Keep Writing

17481748 views66 comments44 favs

We need to keep writing because the great ones aren’t always that great We need to keep writing to insure that the future even has a future We need to keep writing because the wind won’t know how or when to listen if we don’t

care & danger

17481748 views88 comments44 favs

When Roger was small his two favorite toys were a tiny, squat doll called Care and a rubber millipede.

Do I hear Ten Thousand?

17481748 views99 comments66 favs

I cannot begin to list all the ways this conversation can go downhill from here, so I hang up the phone quietly.

Vienna

17471747 views22 comments22 favs

I remember thinking the seasons are arriving later every year, as if the world has been slowed by the weight of graves.

Now

17471747 views22 comments11 fav

‘Miguel! A pint of Guinness, please!' I might as well have asked for his mother's immortal soul. A smile as benign as a stiletto. But he served a clean and tidy pint.

Jonesy's Rhino

17471747 views00 comments00 favs

After Jonesy entered the bear habitat, he walked up to the biggest bear in the group and punched it square in the nose. The bear was visibly startled. I mean, bears don’t get punched that often. And there’s a reason: bears are ferocious animals.

Not If, But When

17471747 views77 comments66 favs

She tells me I have to face the fact that I have the heart of the Tin Man. I know the story. He had none. She is very sensitive and I have to measure my remarks because words bruise her so easily. So, I…

Sex Tape

17471747 views00 comments00 favs

When he suggested to her that they make a sex tape, because that’s what everyone was doing, she wasn’t really surprised. And there was a truly repugnant part of it that fit in with her desire for moral self-flagellation.

The Ex

17471747 views66 comments11 fav

In his mind, he could hear Eve’s voice, “We had some good times, didn’t we?”

New Year's Eve

17471747 views55 comments44 favs

Quail looked up at her. Unsmiling, challenging. Lemme just go wash my hands, he said. She closed the door, bolted it. You won’t need your hands.

the difference between child-dread and grown-up-dread is the paycheck keeps the tears away

17471747 views66 comments44 favs

the first day of preschool/ my mother walked me down the street/ to a tall building that cut/ like a knife made of bricks/ right into the street,/ an american flag/ sticking straight out/ just above the door.

Puerility

17461746 views55 comments44 favs

--So, why are you here?

Low Clouds

17461746 views55 comments22 favs

We lay in what we have made, minute fleshy bullets in the target we have made.

My Life As A Series Of Houses (1950-1968)

17461746 views44 comments22 favs

There were three other guys on the bus. The landlord (or buslord) let us use the kitchen and bathroom in the house he shared with his wife. I rode into San José City College with the other guys, who were also taking classes there. I remember frigid autum

Lost Sister

17461746 views33 comments22 favs

She looks exactly like my sister, though I do not have a sister.