In the backyard with Joey, I make the mistake of answering him honestly when he asks what the gray brick in the dirt is for. “My parakeet is buried there,” I say. And he asks, “can we dig it up?”Joey's grandma lives down the street; he comes over…

He was a Jack Russell terrier hanging like a baby in a carrier strapped to my chest He had all four legs wrapped around me and was licking me with his long tongue I asked him what his name was, and in a real low voice he said Min

The mother continued to stand, marooned in her isolation and Isis' hostility in between table and bed and under the overhead which cast a blue tinge, she held the newspaper- The Daily Mail- which embarrassed Isis- aloft and at an angle, one leg position

let competitions in crime ensue let every madness bring let every sword be drawn let every furious rage flow free let anger know no shame let all blind rage inflame . . .

while you peed on that little old lady's begonias

each act of creation is a jolt of expectation

The priest went into the place in those parts, the priest an old pear or grape gotten ripe and then moreso, but never actually expiring . He was hunched and it looked like he was broken at some integral part, but nobody could tell for sure where. One time, a bat…

His Danger Pistol was out of bullets, his Bag of Tricks was empty, and he wasted his last can of Antimatter back at the lab. All he had was his Charm and his wits. Charm wouldn't last forever, and he'd always come up a little short in the wits department.

Further down a small group of men lolled near a doorway.

My story begins where so many have ended, strapped fast to a cold table, just moments from a lobotomy needle and anything resembling the man that I am.

It's important to sound human, I know To get fragile near your mother I myself get glimpses now and then

Little Roy Farrell'd taken a bite of his fourth grade teacher's ear as she bent close to help him sound out the word “grace.” Doc Felter had sewn most of teacher's ear back on, but by seventh grade Roy still couldn't read and never understood that he'd in

It’s possible that you’re dying. Every headache a brain tumor, your friend once said. You laughed then. Now you begin to see what he meant.

I saw a woman / at the bar tonight

In his tiny fist he held the world In his other his mothers hand