Most read stories

The Seer

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The strange bones of language wander the room.

The Poetry of Wallace Stevens' Secretary

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What in the name of God’s green earth does this say? “Chifferobe if you can of Aztec in coffee can”?

Dinner in Mexico

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If he had not just decapitated a chicken, he was a man I could have loved.

Myra's Mother

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Smoking is like hooking up with an ex-girlfriend: you know she's bad for you and that it won't work out, but it feels so familiar and comfortable and so easy to slide back into.

The Secret

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It was always your body that told so much -- lips working some secret out

gravelortian part 23

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Can't believe I was able to drive this far

Night and the spell that gave me peace

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When you have lived with pain so long, you grow old and the old man inside of you takes over. That’s just the way it is.

When the Well Runs Dry

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and the moon shines on like a silver dollar and coyotes in the desert scream and holler

Mourning

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It was a phone call we never expected. You were so full of life and joy and the sound of your laugh was pierced in our minds. Two strokes. That's what they said. No explanation, no back story. We worried we would lose you. Immediately, all of our memories with you started…

Devoured Worship

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This wasn't going to be about her anymore.She tied her strong purple balloon to the neck of the wounded horse. Her skirt and her top felt like armor's breath. The tingle across her scalp felt warm. Small rug scrapes that made her think of her last dog, before she died.This…

Midnight Mass

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Mom wraps a bulky-knit scarf around my face and over my mouth. She tightens it into a big knot in back of my collar.

Neactains, Quay St.

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Rarely is Quay Street so clean, Monday in rain, Neactain’s ticking over with Slow jazz and crosswords, Stout and steaming anoraks.

Cow

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“He looks funny again,” the twins would say. “Cow looks funny, Mummy.”

Low Clouds

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

Not by Choice but Circumstance

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With small and fleshy hands/ I scratch at enigmatic stones,

Haze

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Just like D-Ray White’s tapping still bounces off the mountains if the right person is listening, Hasil’s hoots and howls are trapped in record wax like a blood-drunk mosquito in amber.

Hail to the Pres: Celebrating Lester Young's Birthday

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At a time when jazz had its share of royalty–kings, dukes, and counts–Young was democratically elected the President by an aristocratic vote of one; the best jazz singer alive, his sometime lover Billie Holiday.

Old Haunts

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“Why do you write filth?” they howl

Cogito Zero Sum

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When you encounter a body laying on the road, drive over it.

Bookends of a Life: II

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The clacking ventilator reminds me of ice cubes rattling in your highball...

Leg and Leg and Another Leg

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The robot may be grabbing onto something so big I'm mistaking it for the countryside, or the sunset. I could just be one cog in an infinite chain of leg-attachment, stretching from the cosmos to the sub-atomic.

Why won't you lie?

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And out on that lake that day you yelled “desperation please!” And I heard “desperate pleas?” I wondered about first impressions.

Of the smokers I’ve kissed

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The man next to me on the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto makes me think of the smokers I’ve kissed.

Blue Line Southbound

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Brazilian girls yammer with their book bags up against my leg.

Take the 40 Million Years Without Sex Challenge!

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Scientists have determined that a tiny freshwater organism known as the "bdelloid rotifer" gave up sex 40 million years ago. And you thought the spark had gone out of your marriage.

Last Bell

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Coward, cuckold, she taunts: So be it. He's not a young man anymore, nor as clever as he once was, or thought.

River Run

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yearning amid the waning

Literally Choose Your Own Adventure

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You enter the lobby of the office building tentatively at first - you're a little nervous about this interview, after all - but you recall how spectacular and professional you dressed that morning. Plus you read through the company's LinkedIn profile at least five times…

Last Visit to the Toy Store

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The two walked around, taking in all the classics: the imported Russian matryoshka dolls of varying styles and bright colors; spinning tops, red Radio Flyer wagons, kaleidoscopes, and wooden yo-yo's invoked memories of Christmases past. The hand-stitched

'So I fucked Beavis ... so WHAT??'

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[CAUTION: "DISINTEGRATION OF THE FUNCTIONING PSYCHE," IS, APPARENTLY, A "DEEPLY PERSONAL" EXPERIENCE!"]