Flish flash, flish flash, flicker of triangle lights. As he deparks, I say, “See that girl?” She crosses at the stop sign with blond hair flip, flash of white teeth: rips cookie from wrapper, drops wrapper on ground. “I bought her a…

The trouble with alarm clocks is naturally that they are miserable. And their curse is that their misery is useful: we employ them because we want to get away from them. But we would never have one as a friend.

Stars fat as the stars that Van Gogh painted on his easel in Arles, a ring of candles burning on the brim of his hat. Stars that fill the night with delirium.

James Hubert III sat at the bar. It was late. His wife and kids were long in bed and he knew he should be, too. But with the Lovelandtown lift bridge stuck in mid-air, a drink beckoned him. He sat next to Vince DeSantos, a small, stout man, with a bowling

His voice isn't familiar but his words are. He says he knows we haven't spoken in years and apologizes for it. I can hear him pacing on the other end of the line, tapping things and then a shriek of glass shattering. Really, I tell him, no need to…

Okay, I'm here; I'm participating. Enjoying the back & forth with other writers. Waiting for penises and fetuses to move down the "Most Recent" list, but working around them. Well, that's kind of unintentionally visual.This essay, like many other reads on here, is…

I was so used to the silence of late summer afternoons, when I could roll my hoop through the empty, sunlit piazzas without meeting another shadow, that at first I mistook the footsteps for the beat of a metronome spilling through an open window.

He injected her with a sedative to keep her still. He projected himself into her narcotic dream, a small bar with tango playing from a jukebox. They were dancing.

This morning I found A big black crow Working over a flattened Squirrel in the middle Of the road First day of winter Longest night Shortest day No problem The rest of the year Should be a breeze

Study decay, says the Queen of the Underground.

She wheeled more deeply into the office towards Mason’s desk. Keith hurried to the desk and pulled the chair out of the way for her and a sat down next to her. She was blue-eyed, pale and completely hairless, which made it difficult to guess her age.

I was always more comfortable with the ponies than you were / more comfortable with betting windows and two-dollar bills than you were

My father had a terrific argument with his wife, my stepmother, a flaming harridan with a voice like hydrochloric acid, and insisted on driving me back home to California.

This is a nice illusion, here with you. The world Is meant to fill your eyes. You remind me of Everything right now. This is a nice illusion, here with You. It's all morning light. The wind playing with your Hair lifts my spirits, too. Seagulls…

I recalled the one night stand I'd had with the girl one balmy summer night in Minneapolis. We lay on my bed in the moonlight, and I touched the nipples of her tiny breasts with the thumb and pinkie of one hand.