Most read stories

The Brevity of Anthropology

14101410 views1111 comments88 favs

In time's embroidery, the human storyis a short stretch of a short strand within the thread of half a knot-and that stretch of strand's defective. What will mourn us when we're gone?Not the plants which live so lightly on the earth.Not the scorpions and not the ants.Perhaps…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 12

14101410 views44 comments22 favs

Frank was happy to leave the art show and take the train back to SoHo.

On Being Choked

14101410 views11 comment22 favs

I was sitting at my desk at work and couldn't figure out why it felt like a person with a very weak grip was trying to strangle me. Then, I realized I was wearing a scarf.

Cheney Had Plans To Light Off the Reichstag

14101410 views11 comment00 favs

The whole human race was in trouble. As I said in another story a couple of weeks back, Zork the Galactic Destroyer had plans to make Planet Earth a nice, toasty snack for him and his boys. He'd sent his most illustrious spy, the Good Captain Zeep,…

On Deciding Not to Be a Bitch

14101410 views66 comments11 fav

Deny yourself that pleasure For my sake; that feeling beyond measure That you get when you finally, and with much angst, Decide not to be a bitch, to a round of general thanks.

Boundaries

14101410 views11 comment11 fav

Hands and fingers feeling down Cross the boundaries I laid

Every Mirror with Two Sides

14101410 views22 comments22 favs

She was gazing down at her two hands holding the peach seersucker top, but without blinking she saw four hands—ahh, idiot, the mirror! But in the next moment no, it was four hands . . .

Atrocities

14101410 views88 comments66 favs

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

After all

14101410 views55 comments33 favs

The questions piled up so high I thought I'd neverget through the door.The ease of alcohol, the incline of submission. Guttural sounds and spittle.Wipe down the morning afterwith a shower.Redress in last night's clothes.There's coffee if you want it.Sincerity too -no,…

The Shredded Carcass of a Small, Helpless Animal

14091409 views11 comment00 favs

It gets eaten.

Cold

14091409 views66 comments66 favs

Winter will be cold this year, you tell her. You read that. She says she is with child with her new husband. You tell her she's forty-five, it is selfish. The baby. It's fine. You demand to be at her tests. Evan may let you, she says. He's a doll. She would never use that…

"Your face seems faint against the violet glades..."

14091409 views55 comments33 favs

Your face seems faint against the violet glades; The long winds echo once, then fail to start. Some wounding scent has stripped my hopes apart That dwelled to scent you. From the cavalcades The leaves make, bare at times since eve's sting fades To…

My best

14091409 views22 comments11 fav

I don't have time

There They Are! Here They Come!

14091409 views11 comment22 favs

“Help us, help us,” the children are saying. “They’ll come back. Help us. They bite.”

Luminous Nights, 7

14091409 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

Elizabeth Karlin, M.D. and U.W.-Madison’s OB-Gyn Chair’s Cash Window

14091409 views33 comments33 favs

Sad to tears, not bubbly, ordered as all in Madison, outpatient by Elizabeth Karlin, internist, later a bullet-proof vest abortion provider.

Trick or Treat

14091409 views11 comment11 fav

A Halloween drabble. Happy Halloween to all!

The Woman Who Loved Water

14091409 views1010 comments66 favs

I hear the woman upstairs running water. But that's incorrect. I should say the woman upstairs is running from water. She loves water. And water loves her. She loves cooking and doing dishes but especially running water. She runs water all day doing dishes, doing laundry…

Heads or Tails

14091409 views44 comments44 favs

The man next door came over with a pitchfork.

Like 37 Hiroshima Bombs

14091409 views33 comments33 favs

Once in a while I have the time of my life / in this god-forsaken Earth:

The Majesty of the Infinite

14091409 views00 comments00 favs

The other night at work, some kid was in for swallowing a snail's shell. He was nine and, according to the computer, did not have cognitive insufficiency. That last bit was probably put there to make us all not feel guilty about laughing at him.

Better Spent Time

14091409 views44 comments22 favs

there is a tunnel / between your skin and the ground / for kisses to crawl

Face to Face

14091409 views1010 comments66 favs

The face had become a chilling death mask.

A Life of My Own - 8

14091409 views77 comments44 favs

I'm not sure if he's right or not but he has a gorgeous smile, he's charmingly self confident, and he's very persuasive.

Edward Ogle the Ninth

14091409 views44 comments33 favs

Vanilla bean trampoline

Poetry Whores

14091409 views22 comments11 fav

Something’s been eating at my craw. I’m just going to go ahead and spill it all out. You ever hear about Poetry Whores? Well, let me tell you a little about them, because if I don’t, then who will? I’m not going to name names. You can pretty much guess

Lola

14091409 views33 comments11 fav

I know you through the rich dark brown soilcrumbling in my fingers like chocolate cake.I imagine you nurtured bell-shaped papayas,coaxing their smooth, leathery skinfrom green to yellow,while mangoes, the colors of the island sunset,hung with their tantalizing sweet…

Starmen Live in Stars

14091409 views00 comments00 favs

Giant stars are beautiful, when you stand directly in front of them.But touching them, is a whole other story.Junior had touched one. A strong burning sensation flew through his arm and down his spine. A feeling of electrocution and burning at the same…

(give me a real moment with a living god and I’ll go all the way)

14091409 views1010 comments55 favs

I remember, when I was selling real estate, how you could always tell when there'd been a divorce. One room was conspicuously left emptied of its contents, and these rooms were never swept or tidied. Instead they were left just as they were when the par

Kandie Contretemps

14091409 views44 comments22 favs

She sat in a tall chair and there was only one time in the interview that she took her sunglasses off. She didn't really take them off, but just pulled them down for an instant with thumb and forefinger in order to look out at something going past the window. They said…