Momma takes us to the candle store next door where everything smells sweet as she opens, closes glass lids, lets us lean our faces close, smell pumpkin, lavender, trees...

Come, bring your sadness to the precipice of my body, bury it within me like a tool

I It's been there all week, Nose tucked into tail Comfort found between impact and asphalt II I'm still here logged out, still here Had it with the billboards the check engine light milemarkers... Just…

I was seeing the owl lady from time to time when I met Caroline.

Alysia tried to focus on what was important, but it was too much to bear. She was ready to dive down when a shot of wind blew past her, causing her and Megumi to lose control over their gliders.

Your laugh used to startle the nurses.

If the Titanic rises from the bottom of the sea, I will meet you on deck, in a deck chair. Fully dressed for a change.

A proper study of human history should lead the student to an inescapable desire to commit suicide

You can tend to recognise the difference between a good and mediocre mind by observing how each reacts to a misfired original idea.The mediocre mind will praise the merely meretricious, but ignore the more interesting bad art. The higher mind will value the misfired…

So it's me and two other girls...

Cézanne sags during a moment of paint. There is an umbrella in the room whose surface collects his thoughts. Outside, in the rain, the grass and garden smell strongly of spring. Fruit litters the table. Light through the window writhes in conversation with shape and…

"Tell me a story."

I met Barry Hannah once in my life. I’d come to Oxford, MS, to meet an entirely different writer whom I thought then and think now very highly of. I’d also come to escape from another slew of regrets. Oxford is a great city to run away to.

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.

white-gray mounds persist