Most read stories

Wintering

15891589 views22 comments11 fav

Winter makes me reconsider.

Space Program

15891589 views1212 comments77 favs

Mercury and Gemini disappointed.

On the Roof

15891589 views77 comments66 favs

Marie was on the roof. The deck, with its cool concrete pavers and faded cedar Adirondack chairs, was one of the reasons she and Harold had bought their condo in this building. The only ugly part of the roof was the chain-link fence along its edge; soon after they moved…

The Ice Cream Mantra

15891589 views66 comments33 favs

Chant the ice cream mantra. Prance the do dah day ballet. Trot the t-bone tango two-step. Dance the livelong day away.

The Rest of the Story of Mom

15891589 views77 comments44 favs

Easing her hand with her other hand.

boring

15891589 views88 comments44 favs

You don't want to knowthe details of my lifethe gossipthe boring moments strung togetheracross the lap ofmy sense of responsibilityit drives methrough the daysdoing this and thatchore, check on the listi am tired and need to stop for a drinkand then, i am filled up for a…

T.S. Eliot On His Deathbed

15891589 views99 comments66 favs

I guess at the end you’re only looking forward. Or upward actually, since you can only lie there on your back looking upward, straight ahead toward infinity, your mouth in a grimace, with the ghostly pink lips peeled back from the teeth.

Freelance Your Way to Poverty

15891589 views55 comments33 favs

Buyers of freelance writing have a well-deserved reputation for responding slowly, thereby increasing your pleasure in much the same way that the Pointer Sisters longed for a slow hand.

O Where Did Our Funny Go?

15891589 views66 comments55 favs

What a nation! First we lost our money Now we’ve lost our funny

Morning People

15891589 views00 comments00 favs

she thinks she looks good in her short red dress, black makeup around her eyes, last night's lipstick a slap of crimson on her cheek. "like this," she says, holding the hammer above her head.

Greener Than Thou: Saving the Earth, One Smackdown At A Time

15891589 views22 comments11 fav

Are you a hostile person who gets into trouble when you express your anger? Would you like to annoy the hell out of people and get away with it?

Startle Reflex

15891589 views77 comments77 favs

I’m decades in and it hasn’t gone away. In all other respects, I am normal. Life is hard, but I’m not complaining. The thing is, I am in a constant state of falling.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 21

15891589 views77 comments44 favs

Francesco needed a magnifying glass to read her little missives.

A Change in Status on the Facebook of Cement

15881588 views88 comments77 favs

First he wrote it in wet cement at the intersection: “Tad Loves Kimberley,” with a big heart around it. He was real proud, you could see. But then later on that year, the graffiti began appearing everywhere, on all the store walls: “Kimberle

ghosts

15881588 views44 comments22 favs

conflicts in time

disparate haiku (mostly)

15881588 views66 comments55 favs

faith in gravity/permitted them to extol/the guillotine's blade.

The Night Shore

15881588 views33 comments22 favs

Somniloquies rise like the drowned . . .

Unconscious Primate Pandemic Panic

15881588 views1212 comments1010 favs

I wrap my left foot

Four Sieges

15881588 views55 comments11 fav

Nicole knows that Deirdre is winding up for the weekly pitch, practicing the line in her mind.

The Favor

15881588 views00 comments00 favs

“You did what?” “Well, the bike is a classic. Getting the proper parts for it just isn’t easy.” “You’ll end up like smeared all over the road doing things like that, and I’ll have to pick you up again. Geez. Watch out for this branch-” Bruce held

Calling All Feathers, Do You Hear

15881588 views66 comments77 favs

These little things, they are the hopes We were waiting for, they are everywhere. I made this one just for you. Call them feathers. Call them roses. You'll always See them if you need them. These Little things carry the good news…

Max & Julia

15881588 views44 comments00 favs

I heard the basketball hitting the pavement in the park across the street, right outside our window... I heard it every day in an evenly spaced rhythm, as if it was keeping time, like a metronome on my life...

The World Explained

15881588 views55 comments44 favs

This is why the earth revolves around the sun: refrigerator magnets.

Speaking to the Dead

15881588 views1515 comments1010 favs

I didn't hear your last words or see your lasteyes. I didn't reach you in time, so I sat by your corpse,silently saying goodbye. I am in that process,not sour, not sweet, that yoked speaking which can't(because the heart won't let it) utter its whisperedlast word, but…

Reconstruction

15881588 views88 comments88 favs

My favorite lie is that he'd escaped the South Tower before it collapsed. Smoke inhalation erased his way home. Mine's better than mother's version: a stranger hurled herself onto him. The truth is when they stopped search and rescue, mother told father, Go. Even dead, his…

Flamboozled in the Beak

15881588 views00 comments00 favs

I was looking for an inn to get a cup of calf soup before jacking ribs at the mutton joint. Feng calls, running numbers on an engine zone out in the valley.

My 27th Great-Grandparents

15881588 views1515 comments1111 favs

Early Spring, 1075, Northumbria: Judith, too ashamed to speak, too angry to cry, waves her handmaiden away. She wants no food. Wind drives icy rain across the thickness of…

The Show Must Go On

15881588 views55 comments44 favs

I had the idea for a pageant for my obedience school at spring graduation

Artist's Statement: Oracle

15881588 views1515 comments77 favs

Mark Reep is a faded Polaroid oracle taped to the only unbroken window of an abandoned house in Ithaca NY.

Hands Like White Porcelain

15881588 views1818 comments88 favs

Jesus is for sale. But he’s heavy.