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Hara-kiri

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unwrapping the gauze from her wrists....

Roy and Ray

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Roy Carver owned a big tire retreading outfit over on the Mississippi.

Doctor Eyepatch

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That contraption he’d invited her to pedal, somebody oughta market one of those. The closer you got the harder it got, and her feet kept slipping off the pedals. It was maddening.

Grace

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The instant you remember gratitude with enough focus to spring free its power...

Traumathurge

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From Berlin to Arcturus. I squeeze Sevigny’s wrist, wish Izzy could be here, but she’s melting salt in Utah. We were on our way to Los Angeles. I’ve booked the horror room.

Dancing on the Rhythm Bus–One Night after Leaving The Pyramid Club, 1991

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The next day I can’t recall at all, a waste, like the flash of twenty years of my life, faces that pass you like comets in some erogenous unnamed zone of night, but they got me in some isolation room with my wrists in leather restraints.

Too Weak for the World

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There was a certain romanticism in it, the salty old man sidling up to me at a bar, rhapsodizing in a slurred stream of conscious about the state of the world, the country, the state of his own heart. He didn't have an eye patch nor beard, nor was he…

Letters to Conrad

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Dear Conrad, If you cannot control your dog’s barking I’ll rig up a loud speaker facing the general direction of your house, and every time your mutt starts howling at the moon, I’ll start playing “It’s a Small World (After All)” at top volume on the p

Shadow Play

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I read it all wrong. In writing her novel, I thought Marilynne Robinson was writing about twins — writing, in some way, about me. Instead, these characters, Lucille and Ruthie, were standard sisters, one older than the other. In fact, Robinson explains th

Gravity Does Not Apply

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Gravity? What does that have to do with writing or with this improbable tether of blue marbles?

Only Temporary

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It was the middle of May when I found out my teacher was screwing my mother.

Arcana Magi Zero + Pure - c.13

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Street by street, non-combatants ran away. Each one passed by the Society and law enforcement screaming.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 43

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Ben was in no mood for games. His ribs hurt and his eye was painful. He would have to tell this girl, who had flicked her tongue in his ear and who did not sound like Sophie, to get lost

Bearing Witness

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I hold them to the light...

Assiduity Three

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Everybody needs a flaw or two. It builds character.

Everything Has Been Arranged (or, Chamomile Tea at Ten Thousand Feet)

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The building ejects my condominium like an enormous videocassette.

New World

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The flash of love was real, the life within her was real, and the main thing now was to climb.

Tin Girl

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Like some beautiful yet macabre puppet, she was suspended on strings of wire, painstakingly threaded tubing flowing into her cavities, through her chambers, around her mechanics.

Twinsburg

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We knew this year would be different because we bought bikinis. We had never worn bikinis before. Our swimsuits had always been shiny one-pieces with stripes, or polka dots, or tiny yellow fish. Not this year. It was a hot summer and the department store was overly …

Cantina

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It's good enough. Spacious. Then the cards but I am not for cards. Sasha directs the people, helping them, at ease and happy even. Strangers that have found a common denominator in games. A brotherhood and sisterhood I can't understand. I watch. I see green…

Guinness for Iron

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My sister / craves raisons

Your Last Rooster

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But his muscles fluttered and off he flew leaving the stink of barnyard on the sheets.

Our Own

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The world is upon us. The only thing that matters Now is if you are willing to be seen by them. Many moths Will be hidden by simply gathering on the bark Of the one tree, but this will not sustain you if you Do not also have the courage…

Manifesto

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I write poems.

Four Quarters for a Dollar Moon

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There's a large tunnel that runs under my house. I can only estimate but it's not deep below the ground and that's what worries me.

The Search

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“Sixty-seven responses!” Al Edelstein announces at the first meeting of the search committee. It has been just two weeks since Rabbi Feldman dropped dead of a heart attack and just a week since the congregation ran the ad: “Help Wanted: Orthodox Rabbi. Im

The Suicidal Juggler

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The man wore a bowler hat and stood on an open patch of grass, with a pyramid-shaped stack of baseballs at his feet.

How dare you?

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She took a deep breath. Last night, she said, Who was the woman?

don't let the flames chase you away

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my maddening pyromaniac,/ you're burning up my heart/ so open up your broad-toothed mouth/ and let me pour the ashes in.

Bethlehem

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I dragged you that last half mile Me such a slip of a thing, one bite mark visible You the bear, your growl now only audible When you furred from kerb to road to kerb The December snow followed us Dragging Christmas red behind you As I ignored my…