Most read stories

The Floating Dock

13821382 views11 comment11 fav

Charley carried the corpse over to the dinghy and tossed it into the pool of rain water collected inside. The headless snake swerved through the water, oblivious to its fate, powered perhaps by exposed nerves and muscle memory.

Me and Not Me

13821382 views55 comments44 favs

Is there a homunculus in my brain guiding everything like the pilot of an airliner?

Come Monday

13821382 views1616 comments1212 favs

“Have the cousins arrived?”

Two Brothers

13821382 views11 comment11 fav

They run nonstop for weeks. Between traffic stalled cars. Down forgotten subways tunnels drilled long ago in the cold earth. Past burning sugarcane fields.

our last time

13821382 views22 comments00 favs

If you had gotten pregnant our last time, in 1967 (when you lied and told me “I guess I’m finally over you,”) then our son could have been that man you saw with the drooping moustache and his coattails flying in the lobby of the building in Louisville,

On the Anniversary of My Grandfather's Passing

13821382 views22 comments00 favs

What I remember about my grandfather were his fart jokes. When he wasn't telling us kids about how young David defeated the mighty Goliath or how Saul the pharisee humbled himself to become Paul the Apostle, he was telling us about the baby burp that begg

Theology of Forgiveness

13821382 views55 comments66 favs

In my life when I am pursued / by some wildly delicate thing

140 Words on Solitude and Being Alone

13821382 views99 comments44 favs

As a child I drowned myself in the pages of books, and as a writer I prefer to be left alone with my imagination.

13 circles of Hell revealed to the Bird King in a series of hallucinations caused by medicine for a urinary tract infection

13821382 views66 comments55 favs

1. The Kingdom of MaggotsBillions of tiny naked bald men wriggle and squirm through a derelict mannequin factory.2. The Sea of KnivesThe crests of waves slice and slash. Maimed mermaids wail.3. The Eye MoonEnvious mirrors ape the sun. An astronaut falls forever into open…

Intimate Dialogues - "Ledge"

13821382 views11 comment11 fav

It was a mildly windy day of the working week in the financial district of the city—the bright morning sun was out—when a security guard was called to the fifteenth floor to deal with a disruption. “This way.” Someone pointed to a desk. At the desk

The Nurse

13821382 views1111 comments99 favs

I lay on a table in a cold room in one of those little blue gowns that open in back.

Atrocities

13821382 views88 comments66 favs

My table offers up the gutted calf/ with carrots and potatoes yanked / alive and whole

Kash Mire

13821382 views44 comments33 favs

You watch with frigid eyes, as their soggy woolens squelch dark mud, even smiling a little as they make croaking frog-lure noises. You know eventually a toad or two would land in the Frogger. You like the word Frogger.

There Is No Glass

13821382 views33 comments33 favs

I'm a heathen in the church of the absolute.

My Bunny Hop Years

13821382 views55 comments22 favs

The Bunny Hop represented that riot-like atmosphere–in cuddly guise–described by Claude Levi-Strauss in his seminal essay that I have forgotten the name of it’s so important.

TBT

13821382 views1111 comments1010 favs

Back then we used to dance slowly to Sam Cooke's “You Send Me” on your parquet floors, whispering about planting our vegetable garden, planning to seed the lawn with centipede grass, promising to count all the red cars that came down the street.

Suspicion

13821382 views00 comments00 favs

A woman confronts her suspicions about her husband's fidelity.

Wheelbarrels

13811381 views22 comments22 favs

What a great feeling it was, the day I first thought about and discovered how toilets work. Nearly as exciting as the day I learned wheelbarrel is actually spelled wheelbarrow.

68 & Riverside

13811381 views00 comments00 favs

Martin met Siena in the elevator, carrying two brown bags of groceries. She asked him to press the button for floor eight. As they rose, Martin fixed his eyes on the display as it changed numbers: G, 2, 3… and so on.

Note To Self

13811381 views55 comments44 favs

Along with Bad Bunny comes the reckless dancing the ambulance chases and the long, drawn-on faces

On an Iceberg of Words

13811381 views88 comments66 favs

She cut me adrift On an iceberg of words And words melt As you know Looks like we may have Gone out on the limb A little too far without A toe-hold on Reality Doesn’t it? But I saw the headlines: Cows Bound for Slaughterhouse Make

Luminous Nights, 7

13811381 views00 comments00 favs

Robbie took me out to Fox River on his father's ski boat one day, as he often did — but this time it was my eighteenth birthday. That was when he opened up his robe and showed me all there was to show of himself, begging me to make love to him, saying h

The Umbrella

13811381 views44 comments22 favs

Frankenstein (In Three Sentences)

13811381 views00 comments00 favs

I made a man of men. He made a man of me, the way all men are finished, in tragedy and sorrow. Together, we make a story, for other men, brothers and sisters.

Tomorrow

13811381 views22 comments11 fav

You hold me now, and pay attention. Everything is new.

A Deal With Tomorrow

13811381 views33 comments11 fav

I suppose I'd rather Tomorrow be heroic. It would make the passing of time less villainous.

Upwards, Into the White Eye Rising (Parts IV - VI)

13811381 views44 comments33 favs

IV. Upwards, into the white eye rising, There is will, to stay, yet stays no will to be. Come,…

Scent of danger

13811381 views1010 comments55 favs

Sitting in the SUV awaiting the trooper behind us I felt a warning tingle.

I Fall in Love Too Fast

13811381 views44 comments22 favs

It was Wednesday, the papers had a food section that day, so the gap-toothed news hawker at the mouth of Winter Street would yell out “Foozection! Foozection!”

To The Little Mouse Who Started Feeling Slightly Nauseous

13811381 views66 comments55 favs

I heard them praying to some god none of us had ever heard of. I'm glad I went to the funeral and still have the yellow rose that I did not throw into his grave. At some point you have to stop nibbling from the moldy cake.