We took our turn at the younger stage. One good turn deserves another and all that crap. But does it always have to strong-arm the world's latest lovers apart with so much pushed and shoved ultra violence?So far…

Unless they leave you comatose,/ it’s the disasters you remember.

You were a mine field

Prayer: Cold prayers in her throat, so far all unanswered. This thing grows steadily, unmistakably, cobbling counterfeit cells and flesh together into an unspeakable mass.

I lost my job but the government found me a new one. Now the government pays me to pretend I’m a travelling businessman. I fly around the country to imaginary meetings. It’s part of a project to make it look like the economy is doing well.

Used to be I'd keep busy. Dreadful the time I spend sitting, standing, staring. I lose track, now. I believe it's because he died. It gets hold of me. I'll see him half on half off his bed, a plaid blanket angled over his back and legs, held…

On the phone I asked my mother how she was doing. “I’m getting old,” she said. “Going slow. But getting there. I’m ninety-four!” My mother was always 94, when she was really 93. I remember she was 93 right after she turned 92. And 92

Now that Spring has sprung I am reminded about the day a former neighbour complained about my squirrel collection. I love to feed the black squirrels that gather in my yard and she became convinced I had trained several ninja squirrels to enter her garden

I’d look for a fork and quickly stab a piece of it and bite into it, feeling good about the finality of things.

I. The cowboy of my heart rides high in the saddle. Behind him, the long tail of his speeding palomino, golden — like the hair to the girls I was later to want so desperately — stands straight out from his sweating, muscular haunches. It's time.…

When you need a vacation...from everything.

Every encounter is a dance, every secret has its key

When he got to the office, he opened the drawer with the new can of fish food and realized he’d forgotten to buy a fish tank. He hated fish, hated the thought of a “hobby” but his girlfriend’s therapist had suggested it. Hobbied, hobbled, whatever

Perdita's confusing profusion of parts makes it impossible to know which way up she goes.She flutters beneath the camera's shuttered stare, …

We are driving towards New Jersey, my husband and I, to pick up our seventeen-year-old daughter who is visiting her father for the weekend. As we drive there, I am suddenly reminded of how much I used to love my ex-husband, particularly when I was sevente