I said, “That bird is hungry.” The sparrow was eying both of us At our separate outside café tables As it hopped around looking for crumbs. Then it would look up at us Expectantly.

.

In the grip of a bad dream, she bolted awake, thinking she had heard the nightsounds of a tomcat crawling around her property. It was some dreaded hour before dawn; she had no idea when. Her small, frail body was stiff, her breasts swollen and sore to

He first saw her stepping off a water taxi by the Long Docks in the rain at night, her right arm atrophied from some early childhood disease, dangling like an apology, her other holding a cigarette. Her wet black hair hung past her shoulders and her eyes

Why flash?because the moments, the moments, they pass in flashes of brilliancethat shudder, death glow alightand nothing makes sense beyond nowand nothing will help me but meand I am not even enoughnot my thoughts or your nod of assentor even the deep sigh of…

I worry for the daffodils/ and there optimistic yellow bursts./ I worry for the over-eager clover,// prodigious green on crepe myrtles,/ even for the early green of nut grass.

Late spring, summer before cancer. Frank drove Max and his pal Jason to Cincinnati for their first rock show. Less Than Jake at Bogart's. A two-hour drive for ska-punk.

Beneath an opal moon, the open field and wilderness across it look immersed in varying shades of blue. A strong night howler blows across a little girl's face as she walks the field as if in a trance; her whole visage framed against the backdrop of this very act …

I figure maybe I’m mostly alone; they are all running down staircases or falling down fire escapes, some of them naked, some of them with towels, mostly probably naked though.

She was as beautiful as flowers in a dream

An yet we are all inmates...

The sound of the crowd’s excitement, their smiles, and laughter started to turn Mayumi’s thoughts about life in the Magi world.

I considered kissing Christian. It wouldn’t be terrible. I mean, it might be terrible, but it wouldn’t be awful. His teeth were a little crooked but he didn’t smell or anything.

strung from her window to a tree

But I don't see the cabinets, or know how to put the 4 chapters he's talking about today into the drawers that are invisible, floating, above his bed he's been in for a year, me sitting next to him, becoming a spinster.