Most read stories

One Poem, Eight Rejections

19921992 views2525 comments1515 favs

Do you suppose you could make your female protagonist a salamander rather than a human?

The Longfellow Bridge Diaries: Part 2

19921992 views22 comments22 favs

They sway from his hips, the torn knapsack, and the corners of the pushcart

Bubbles

19921992 views1212 comments66 favs

It’s about 4:30 when the phone rings. I look at the display and see it’s home. “Hey,” I say picking up. “I hate you,” says Jules. “I hate, you, too,” I say. My co-workers don’t even blink. They’ve heard this before.

Her father's job

19911991 views2020 comments1414 favs

“We don’t drop litter. Pick it up.”

Animals in Reverse

19911991 views2424 comments1313 favs

She was still alive when I started to write the story of her life, called Lucy's Story, about her recovery from catnip, but it was not the real story. In the fake story, she took the subway to A.A.

Magnificent Pigs

19911991 views00 comments11 fav

I retrieved the book from the middle of the room and set it in front of her. "Look," I said. "If we open the book up again at the beginning, Charlotte's alive. She'll always be alive in the book."

Night at the Reservoir on Airline Drive

19901990 views4444 comments2626 favs

Del and I watched my brother toe his way to the edge of the cottonwood branch that arched over the reservoir.

Betty Superman

19901990 views99 comments66 favs

No, I just liked what it said "All at Once Is What Eternity Is" which seemed right to my seventeen year old mind, explained it all to me the way nothing else did. I matted the poster in art class and put it in a frame over my bed. Betty hated the poster.

Fiction with Teratoma Preserves

19901990 views77 comments11 fav

In Nebraska, we found a dead man lying between the furrows of a field. He’d been there awhile in the heat and the sun, the only shade provided by a cloud of flies. The dead man lay on the ground, decaying, disappearing into the dirt:

The Thing on the Stair

19891989 views66 comments44 favs

Autumn brings It

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

19891989 views2222 comments1212 favs

Then it got quiet again, the kind of quiet that fills a car even with the radio on and the highway ticking away and the corn flying past regimented and silk tasseled.

Whatever Happens

19891989 views99 comments1010 favs

When Matthew calls I'm sautéing garlic for the polenta and Joe is squeezing buttercream rosettes from a Ziploc bag onto a spice cake he made from scratch. Or trying to—we…

Simulacra

19881988 views2929 comments2323 favs

*** Winner of the 15th Glass Woman Prize. Thank you, Beate Sigriddaughter.

More Child Fear

19881988 views2121 comments88 favs

Women with tremulous breasts. Going down the swimming pool drain.

Poem for the Poet

19871987 views1515 comments1515 favs

for Bill YarrowPoetry is a way of breathingagainst the enemy's chest withoutlosing consciousness again. Itis a ghost dance. Poetry is tobe determined by the plight of bees.Poetry is a waterfall ona mailing list. I've never tasteda finer whiskey than poetry.Poetry is half…

Two Writers play Modern Warfare

19871987 views1212 comments66 favs

I watch as my character falls lifelessly to the ground. I press the square button and I am instantly revived.

How To Profit As Copper Becomes The New Gold

19851985 views1313 comments1212 favs

We have no more leaders, only rulers who live in another country. I don't ask why my cousin's hand is bandaged, what he's been burning, what's tarped in his truck.

Three Poems, One for Each Eye

19851985 views1818 comments1010 favs

1. a bone to pick"It seems to be accepted nowadays more than ever that killing,individual and mass killing,is the order of the day;it is accepted."--Henry MillerWhy can't you leave well enough alone just long enough for it to make its own miraculous escape…

Van Gogh's Peach Tree

19851985 views77 comments22 favs

There is a boy. The boy is standing in front of a munificent peach tree in all the splendor and atrophy of his afternoon existing. Shadows? Yes. There are midday shadows, hiding and seeking, long and greyish to offset the bright reds and violets and orang

The Oscars

19851985 views44 comments66 favs

Her husband goes hard on her. No blushes--he goes hard all over, not just in the assumed area. He could have Blip! disappeared instead, how would his wife have liked that? He has to make a choice, his captors are waiting, they don't have time, that is to…

4 o' clock

19841984 views1414 comments44 favs

I still walk into galleries. A shadow of my old self still walks into galleries. That old self was hungry to be wounded by the juxtaposition of color and form and texture and line and darkness and light. But I can no longer see art. I can…

When the wind/sky really is God

19831983 views1515 comments1313 favs

and all the trees are holding/their limbs up in prayer/and rain is mating with soil

Seventh Floor Ward

19831983 views2626 comments2626 favs

Hers is the kind of crazy that can't be masked. She's worn it on her sleeves since tenth grade.

Tinpot Love

19831983 views3737 comments3131 favs

Under the tree of the one apple, the Tin Man waited for his Tin Woman. He wanted to ask her to become his Tin Wife.

How to Travel with Your Demons (2)

19821982 views1313 comments1313 favs

The love of hundreds of people, seemingly, rain down from the sky, but its not like when the cock hits the good spot inside you. And everybody who is reading this knows this is true. We all know what that feels like, that aha moment, that eiphany, like,

Watercolored Different

19821982 views22 comments11 fav

Simon Ridley only had one special power. Whenever he walked into a room, an awkward silence would descend.

Diary of a Marriage

19821982 views2020 comments77 favs

Well, it’s a cold dance we dance this morning. You are up at the crack of dawn and the bed is empty even before you leave. I pretend to sleep so I can revel in the delicious morning ritual I know will be ending soon. I hear you brew coffee, shower, tal

Read Chinese (from The New Yorker)

19821982 views66 comments44 favs

Roy Orbison, Roy Orbison, Roy Orbison, Roy Orbison, Roy Orbison, Roy Orbison—right now that’s all I can say.

Pork Chops and Apple Sauce

19821982 views00 comments00 favs

When I went to the SPCA, I had the intention of looking for a Beagle. I had done the research and thought the breed would be a good fit for my lifestyle. I am a long distance runner and wanted some company on the long night runs. I wanted a dog that would…

Mister Fix-It

19811981 views3939 comments1818 favs

Lined up like ghosts on the front lawn, the second-hand porcelain fixtures had embarrassed her.