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The Noise

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I'm hearing a noise. I can't see it. It's hiding and seems to be coming from the other side of the creek. With boots on I slowly wade across. The water makes its light lapping sounds. Reaching the bank, I search for the noise. It must have a face, suntanned and warm, that I…

My Notes on "Quittin' Ain't Easy"

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Sorry, I think I was jotting and not writing. I see a dropped article that would clarify my interest. I purposely didn't describe my alcohol use. There, I just did.

Joe's Sniff Shack

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Joe's, always smelling of cherry chapstick or the breeze that comes up from subway grates, used to service some of the finest dupes in town.

Headlines

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He brought me flowers once, three wilted carnations I put in water, though the sight of them made me uneasy. He brought me pictures once, too, of three sisters—ten, twelve, fourteen—straddling dirt bikes. He touched my shoulder once, as I edited pictures …

Come to the Park

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Come to the park and swing with me, sing with me.

No Flowers in June

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Of flowers there Are none In June No sun Upon my cheek The gentle breeze Stirs me not The smiles They cloud my vision Birds they Sing their songs But I hear Them not When tears Rain down My heaven.

fealty

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just before my break,/ he came on the line,/ old and slow with computers now/ but wanting a discount/ he'd been told he qualified for.

Sunday Morning Series- 7: Sunday Morning Trifurcation

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Go diddle in the sand// to save some other sinner/ a death of stones.

The Instrument

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She wore no bra. As she jammed the truck into park and pushed against the heavy door, he saw the points of her nipples against her dress. Ice filled his belly, the most beautiful pink-colored ice.

The Judge's Wife Part 8

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—You're convinced I'm crazy. I'm convinced you're incompetent.

Shoot the Moon

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Neither of us thought of real winning. We set about brilliant losing, dark angel forms of luck and greed, the desire, the craving, the need to lose so strenuous that one wins; we tied at thirteen.

Fairy Tale

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Ey’, it’s where I followed him down

Linear A

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let’s press our words into the clay/ in language so completely dead/ we have to re-imagine it.

Another Way

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If there was another way to describe emptiness, I'd word the endlessness of the sky, of the ocean at low tide.

What my daughter knows I know or some likely version

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He doesn't call, not even on her birthday. She doesn't mention it or complain. She knows she doesn't have it as bad as some, even in this privileged Triangle of North Carolina. She is white and pretty and belongs to what's left of the middle…

Five Million Yen: Chapter 56

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—Can you handle a threesome? said Isabella.

The Exhaustion of Dreams

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I like it best when I wake up And the wild rain of dreaming ends.

Inheritance

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My father died. I took his clothes.

Kissing In a Warm Car

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Then I did the same to you, inhaling your scent which was one thing at your hairline and another at your collarbone.

The Color of Sleep

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Have you ever seen a body of words give birth to a paragraph? I won't lie. It's a little gross. But quite moving. First there is the biology of reproduction. A blackbird living in an electric guitar, for instance, and its inexplicable urge to mate with an elephant.…

The Cherry

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He then spent his walk home to his single apartment spitting up various textures of red, combinations of cherry and blood mostly.

On Women

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She was prepared

Version - 2.0

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Pale like a tracing of a memory

Authenticity in a Time of Consolidation

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Culture gives what it feels you deserve/ in the cul-de-sac of your time and place.

One Kiss

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"It was one kiss. No tongue. What does that even mean?" Lindley tried to see Leah as any other patient, "What do you want it to mean?" "I don't know," Leah whined, tears welling, "something, maybe. You know I hate surprises." Her sister was not another…

FWA (Fiction Writers Anonymous)

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Sebastian and Janice had been a natural match. They sought to deny this at first because a recovery assistance program was not a place to forge intimate relationships. It worked out wonderfully in Hollywood, but Hollywood, as everyone knew, was just a facade. So…

mondays get all the heat

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when i was five or six/ we lived in an apartment/ and every sunday/ i'd lie on the carpet/ to watch squares of sunshine/ crawl across the rug/ while my mother inflicted upon us/ a centuries-long hour of television/ worse than any droning mass.

Dead to Rights

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He draped the sheet over her body. Blood spotted the fabric, rose petals on snow.He left the pistol, but pocketed the first edition she'd signed. Part of his fee.In the park, he ditched the glasses, fake mustache, and anorak before making the call.The publisher called an…

Assiduity Twenty One

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Blue skies greet us as we exit the forest . . .

Where is Now and When is There?

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The floor dissolves beneath us, pierced by lasered/ glare of countless eye-beams.