Look at her. She doesn't want to be here. The kiss and “wouldn't miss it for the world” was as empty as her crossed arms, crossed legs, and jittery foot were loaded. She attacked the foam of her latte with a tiny red straw. I wanted to scream. Complain about the…

You lose her. In the vortex of guttered water, her tangled hair entwines. Tornado-like. Her body spinning boisterously at its core. Her name: Izra—the wooden doll with black pebbled eyes. …

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

Her mother was worried.

And there sat one man. Searching for words and solace. The silence returned and the colors peeled off from the walls. Darkness returned with fledgling light. He threw back his head and filled the emptiness with his laugh. He laughed in mirth and in misery

Independence Day was a Thursday. Frank had been invited to join some Yale Art School classmates in Vermont for a three-day bacchanalia.

Mr Robertson chuckled gently as he caught the aroma of freshly cooked cinnamon doughnuts and watched the oil leave its fingerprints.

As a boy I fished under the Tappan Zee bridge which spans the Hudson River above New York City.

Her mouth was sour; her forehead was still damp with perspiration. She leaned against the bathroom wall and noted her complexion had gone pale. She wanted to slide down the wall and rest until she felt steadier, but…

There's this sepia-toned photograph, which my mother gave me, of my brother and me when we were still both youngsters. In the picture my brother's dressed in a skimpy checked suit whose sleeves were already too short for him — on its way to becoming my

Mostly, though, reiteration of the old/ in an idiosyncrasy that strives/ to become fresh and fails

Bert also said that somebody else at the meeting was complaining about his high blood pressure, and Bert repeated what Hank had said, that he was glad to have any blood pressure at all.

We dig up conscience-tunnels, pluck the play-flower of present choice for fun, run aground, past this dimly lit, though not to be underestimated, stage, and open door upon empty door, to nothing, for the lights are a pulse flickering in the perceptual per

Now, at last, she finds what she's been searching for. Worms. Like bitty pale larva, like half-moons of air trapped under fingernails. She thinks she sees one twitch; she blinks more furiously and hates herself for it.

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