[B]y fleeing the city to live on the outskirts of nowhere—a place so far off the beaten path that even Duras’s aging Mr. Andesmas would have felt isolated—I was of course trying to escape from none other than myself.

My God. It never ends

Jaume jumped up from the bar, a wide smile across his face. He hugged his old friend and planted a kiss on his wife's cheeks. He was buzzing from the chance encounter, marveling how life had brought them together after all these years. There had to be a r

You and I will never meet. You will never even know I existed. Even in dreams you will never imagine me. Someone told me once that your sleeping mind cannot conjure up new faces. It just spits out all the ones you’ve ever seen and that’s it. That’s it.

I reach into my pocket for my keys and discover the cough drops Iput there a week ago have melted. Now my fingers are sticky. And I don’t have my keys.

"Now, I'm not no Holocaust Denier . . . I just think it was a little bump in the road! Like Reagan said about Watergate . . . 'Mistakes were made,' and all. Well, shoot . . .…

. . . laughter and madness.

“Would you look at that one!” my father said. “Who did she know?” my mother asked. “Who did she blow?” my father said loudly, and burst out laughing. I laughed too, although I didn't know why. My mother shot him one

“It is not your shoes the Americans complained about!” Roberto yelled, sitting behind his desk, cigar smoke curling around his purple face. “It is your UNDERWEAR!”

But Jeffrey was flabbergasted and couldn’t explain to the officer why he was speeding. All he could manage to get out as an attack of Tourette syndrome hit were nasty, flamboyant obscenities. The Alabama state trooper wasn’t amused.

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.

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.

I was ashamed of my conscience.

A pinprick breaks the black/ and pins the spin of constellations/ around its still point.

Walter met Danial at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. They didn't have much in common at first, other than AA, with Walter on the recovery side of treatment and Danial reluctantly just beginning.