Dominic would show them all. That stupid "Welcome to Bessemer" sign was his. It was the pride of the whole damn town. No other target would do.It was the dead of night, and Dominic rode his bike to the town line. He briefly considered spray painting something vulgar over…

Everybody called her The Crier because from time to time we would hear her crying.

Since when has it become a crime to walk about a neighbourhood? No one will ever convince me that it 's okay to follow, harass, or approach any unarmed person with a gun and shoot them.

My buddy had been in the computer business, a systems analyst. Surely there would be some mention of him online. But there was nothing. Nothing, that is, until I saw the obituary.

There she is. A paper doll of me. The dress, the lilt, the self-hatred. The crowd thins and swells in want of a scene. Conversations begin, pretend, then halt. My gin and tonic sweats into my hand and I lick at the…

My mother moved her things out of my parents’ bedroom into the attic guest room. When I asked where guests would sleep, my father said, “Matthew, don’t be an asshole.”

Mythical Itch and the Unicorns Working Late Jacuzzi Floozy One Erection Diego Rivera’s Poncho Frieda’s Moustache Avalanche Babushka Dolls Photographic Mammary Drool Sir Gruntsalot Uber Rubber Iota Pie Elder Geese Ladylike Rud

Emi stood up and turned to Mayumi. She did not know what else to say. There was a sense of helplessness.

I fear my personal information travels the World Wide Web/ and mad Ukrainians will steal my name and wealth./ I fear the fiscal cliff and raising the ceiling on national debt./ I fear a death by taxes.

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.

How to capture in word, in song, the fleeting moments of our loveYou were hereAnd now you're goneEven as I used to lie next to you,bathed in the care and concern that emanated from your warm black brown eyes,I knew there would be that day, that you were no moreDestined for…

[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.

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.

For you have waited. And waited and waited. And soon your slice of bread will be ready.

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