He and she are fucking while I watch. She's moaning deep desire and he's pounding flesh into flesh. I'm fully clothed, eyes attune to their fornication, studying. He comes inside of her; their bodies stiffen and then wriggle against one another. …

Don’t forget, I’ve watched the evil you’ve done to the lawn for years, not to mention the chaos you’ve made of the woodshed. Don’t you remember me showing you how to properly stack the wood?

The kitchen is full of old girlfriends. I avoid them. They are munching on cheddar and sharing stories I'm sure I don't want to hear.

A walled city doesn’t let you out any more easily that it has let you in earlier.

I asked him his name and here’s the kicker, Leiby. It means lion. You know what? I said mine is Levi, how do you do. That means to accompany—like in the root of the word, it’s got that meaning. As in levayah, funeral in Hebrew. Does that only

Able to search through centuries, I click, scribble, skim,resurrect wet stone walls, the smell of burning peat.Bob's your uncle; Peggy's your aunt.Name your family, child. My brother said helloto Uncle Shirley and Aunt Greg. I was more…

It is easy to look out on the Bowery and say, "There are the bums." Encountering one, however, even one who asks to "bum a quarter" or tells you he's "on the bum" the word "bum" slips away in one's mind...

I play in the dirt with cattle bones while Mother rattles the sky. She tells me I have my fathers eyes. The words come through bloody fissures in her lips.

He invited her in for a Martini and she graciously accepted.

Last night we slept with books in the bed.

It was one of those sweltering afternoons that San Diego endures only several times a summer. I'm riding on El Cajon Boulevard, with my friend John in his old Chevy pickup. John is a lifelong San Diego resident and fanatical Charger backer. He's talking up some…

When I look at the picture on my refrigerator, I always think the same thing: "Hitler was a baby once too, look how well he turned out."

Herr Toad smokin'

She put the Necco wafer on Sally's tongue."You can't be the priest, Emma" Sally said nearly choking on the hard, chalky disk."Then why you on yaw knees stupid?""You said to be prayin' and like in church, but you can't be doin' priest stuff. That's for…

I may as well have been sleepwalking. Either way, I had no opportunity to admire the moonlight flooding into the long corridors, illuminating the stag heads and painted cheeks of long-dead ancestors.