It was twilight, and the sky was getting darker even as the lights of civilization were becoming more noticeable in the gloom. The daytime city, with its grit and dust and texture, was disappearing. Soon there would only be electric light and neon and the

The clickity-click of poker chips spills out to the six of us waiting for a table. We're old college buddies, drunk since one this afternoon, sporting the ball caps our wives never let us wear. We brag. About our poker wins, how easy it is to read each other, how we can…

But not once did we mention heaven. The next day we bought another one.

Last-minute women notice me and latch on, converging in narcotized spirals, old sunflowers twisting towards a fake light. Ugly, used up people, turning like dirty snow, terrified of facing the sunlight alone, of the hour long drunken drive home.

I think he viewed Communion as an act of hygiene that allowed him to go on being fiery and self-determined.

TRAVELING NORTH Though you are dead now. Though I walk covered in dust through this strip mall in Iowa. I remember the collection of tendencies that led me here. The flat landscape. The blazing heat of cornfields. The landscape and body are one…

"So, like the Goldilocks thing…"

honey/she said/with a wink/and a twinkle

Elvis at a Starbucks. Some graphic words.

Christmas is here and there's work to do.

I would roll my eyes, give one word replies or a smiley face.

On Saturday mornings, by noon, the delivery car comes from Boston and unloads fresh bread and sandwiches, pork ribs and ground pork stuffed inside of breads and buns and banana leaves, bean shakes, and sticky rice desserts.

Her eyes grew wide, moist, catching the low light, holding onto it as if an imprisoned lover. "So you come home." I smiled. Was she playing a game?

He was the kind of cat who began lifting weights in the fourth grade.

We met an old friend and his old dog. We went off leash on the lush Buffalo grass. He and I—this old friend, I mean—talked mostly of divorce, something we shared between us.