“I’m a sucker for a good first sentence but I won’t dismiss the whole work based on a bad one. Besides, anybody with an MFA can write a decent first sentence. You can’t judge the whole work based on that.”

i am either lacerated /or ill at ease / continually subject to gusts of life

Alysia and Megumi made their magic circles, but they stopped short when they saw a young man at the end of the street. Their eyes trembled and their feet moved them back without thought.

You held my hand when I hit the ground and told me the shakes would start soon.

Warranties are what made America great, although hers has expired and the mailbox will remain empty for another fifteen days.

It is not unusual to see Göttwigg with his shirt on inside out.

...I’m honest enough to know that fucking around has never been accidental or unplanned. Every time I did it, even in the rock bottom throes of esteem, sobriety, and life, yes, even on the brink of suicide, I knew exactly what I was doing...

A year ago, my neighbor was a sexy graduate student in fashion design, sounds perhaps shabby, yet if it is, then we in the Middle West are all shabby. That girl's father graduated from high school with Bob Dylan in Hibbing, not entitling her to a child.

In a mad tipsy leap you came up short and hard on the chipped stone counter Bruised and blue below the seams against the inside of your thigh. Your grand jeté a little too low, left you on the black floorboards Wincing in…

Alysia grabbed her luggage and rolled it behind her. Looking up at the sky, it was nighttime. She could see the crescent moon above, adding to the darkness.

It’s End of the World Karaoke at Big Daddy’s and Lara takes a photo of herself for Facebook before she goes on stage. She’s holding a basket of nachos in one hand and her phone in the other. After she takes the photo, she says, to Javier, “Hold these,” an

to have something, but I don't think you need anything from me. There are poems that belong in your hair and no one else's. They should be like stars that only appear every one thousand years or so, then can only be seen when you are…

My father bouncing his leg to slow rock music with me on one knee, telling me I should keep a special place in my heart for my teeth, to remember where I lose them, on the playground like he did when he was my age, fighting a friend named Bobby-Joe. Or else I could lose…

If I do not hear you leaving by the door... The nearness here of this yet questions when I know you will not come so back again, Nowise the same as you were there before. My own reflection, centred at its core On knowing each …

My uncle lived part-time in prison, in a cell with a blanket, pillow, and towel. The remainder of his days he lived in a small house on Prospect Street.