I imaged him at his mother's house, eating chicken and tabouli with her at her round marble table, leaning back and laughing, then reading my “love you” and excusing himself to cry in the bathroom.

Her Majesty’s Glasses Umbilical Chord Linger Finger Okay Inkjet The Dragon Flies Horny Free Spirit Good Footnote Buttery Clams You’reUp Empty Bladder Star Butter Karmic Impulse Mr. On-the-Ve

First movement I. The town that I…

Okay, I’ll admit it, the earth was shaken on the world's underside, when you left for California. And I sometimes slept on the shores of Lake Michigan and Fox River for your tremendous thousand years’ charisma. To say I cried out in pain would be lettin

The Campus Socialists Paul and Mary Jo lived in an apartment at the top of a long, dark flight of stairs that were so high, I remember as if it were yesterday thinking, the night she pushed him down the stairs, he would surely be dead by the time h

His nervous cackle makes me sick - Oh, if only - Times were different - That knife - Would fit so nicely in his back

I planned and planned. I followed the veterinarians around and I took vials of panda tranquilizers when they were not looking, and it was often that they forgot to look. The earth kept shaking, they were hungry, and many did not know what had become of th

"I'm just saying," the older man continues, "We oughta be ready in case she hits." "We'll be fine," the woman says. "We've weathered every storm that's ever come through here just fine."

“Good to see you, old man,” Greg said. He was like that, an investment banker, a latter-day Tom Buchanan without the polo ponies, self-consciously fusty.

A fat kid running; the sounds of an ice-cream truck —counterproductive.

this is your hair, this is your stare, this is your voice

the cue & flash

“You think it’s a self-castrating suicide note or a self-righteous freedom speech?” “Probably just the ramblings of a madman, pissed he lost a company baseball game.” “Fuckin-A, Pete! Double-murder suicide for a baseball game? Ain’t nobody that craz

I've been in Tucson two days, and so far most of my conversations with my father have taken place while I crane my neck and squint into the sun. I scream up, he screams down. He needs to fix the leaky roof before the rainy season, he says.

She did not know the passage of time, for she was just a bedraggled little kitty, but she stayed behind the lattice for many rising and settings of the Sun.