... he could feel the pointed picket spears.

When I came back from California the second time, in the summer of 1965, I was the first around our town to wear my hair long, influenced by the Beatles. And I bought a bunch of blue caps that everyone in our gang wore, with the number “69” sown on

I know someone in need of healing.

She talks about window treatments, how the place is maybe too much for one. Wants me to know she’s not much of a cook, and wants me to smell what’s in her oven and compliment her cooking anyway.

Gossip Betty Martini divorces husbands when they least expect it. On a seeming whim, she pays a visit to dear Arnold, who keeps her papers handy in his top desk drawer. She initials here and there, signs with a…

The plane passes the runway, dips sharply, its shadow straight down below, too cold in the cabin, the sun hitting your arm like a machete below, it is 94, the humidity too, it has just rained for 3 days, it never rains this time of year......

“I'll have the Ribeye cooked medium rare,” says Bill, who looks over at Julia, blonde hair and disarming smile, and he thinks that she's not bad for a blind date. He doesn't like the way she butters her roll, however, and it agitates him that she spreads…

Where the skin had grazed, shredded by the coarse gravel to form scabs, fascinated Jack. It reminded him of his youth and his own grazes, scratches and stitches. As a boy he imagined scabs were rough foundations of igneous rock, blood like lava pouring th

Once there was a man who wrote in code. He was comfortable among substitutions

I will show you how, in the spring, the sidewalks here look like a crossword puzzle resting under a glass of lemonade,

After President Trump was elected, my first impulse was to spend the next four years cowering under the bed, whimpering.While I knew that I needed to keep track of what our new commander in chief was up to, watching the news made me too angry and too sad and just too…

The blaring scream from my alarm clock suffices as my wake-up call. It disrupts me from my dream state that I so rarely get the privilege to experience any more. I've always loathed that alarm clock, so I turn it off in the most sensibly aggressive manner I know how: just…

  mis-placed       the change           she goes looking for.        her folks        missed another hour...          her worth-while spent wasting        the voice wouldn’t leave the leaves alone.

Vietnam, Tet, and beaucoup Charlie

Her voice gets screechy as she talks of the boy he was caught fondling in the bathroom of a bowling alley. The worst part: the dumb schmuck doesn’t even bowl.