“Careful of the shells,” yousaid. I wanted to tasteyour white, and makea table of your midriff. Georgia's just aplace withso little, butan island nevertheless. Sky's a thing weseem to be, when thelight focuses on…

My sadistic doctor was the only one laughing . Yes sir, I was officially, cordially, confirmed to meet that Irish/ Russian fellow…Colon Oscopy.

The last night, I shivered in bed until three a.m., the blankets wouldn’t work, or the socks, or my tears, but I reassured my heart that my next love would be warmer. 
He was. 
And our air conditioning bill was so high we could’t afford it.

It's tough when muscle gets in the way of memory. The way pain is the only thing I can remember about certain things. Fifth grade, that's what I think of. I think of pain. Not just abstract pain, not some we'll get to it later adolescent angst or ennui.…

and watch the bird play and squirrel play/ and the twitching of cottontail noses

Librarians love me, you want to know why? I don’t dog-ear pages, I don’t even try.

The dog awakens at the sound of a petal falling, sure that barbarians are at the gate. She opens wide her yellow teeth.

. . . hot sand and quiet ocean only.

...a headwater stream that has never had a name....

Benton showed her his old room, a shrine of old posters and records. But it had been cleaned out, made to look like a guest room. “Kiss me,” Benton said. “April.” “That was just a name, so don't get any…

Rye goods * Cracker brot: best practices * Recipes: never embellish! * Boughten: what to avoid

Lapping salt beads from/ my crackling, ecstatic lips.

maybe a day in deep winter

I was to limp with stunned, growing horror, as I navigated through the swirling smoke and maze of human corpses...

She pictured the President leaving the hospital a few days later, hobbling on a cane. Jackie beside him, Caroline and John-John dashing from a waiting limousine. He couldn’t die. She’d looked into his eyes. John F. Kennedy spoke to her.