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.

The phone rang again at midnight. Maury sat straight up in bed, a reflex from his days in the barracks. Linda, his wife, was already sitting up. In the hint of moonlight, she dabbed her nose with a wadded tissue and made helpless little noises. Maury…

2. Travel To Somewhere Fascinating, Even In Your Own Back Yard!

Does he pack you a lunch when you're running late for work? Even when you're not running late? Does he insist on regular medical check-ups, for which he'll pay because you don't have insurance? Will he disapprove of your objectionable behavior, and not turn the…

I heard them calling my name. “Will passenger Karen Anderson please come to flight desk Six Fourteen? Flight 912 is ready for takeoff. This is your last call.” “Mario, did you hear that?” I asked. “We’re on the wrong plane!”

Tokarsky and I got chased off an El train by a couple of mean-looking black dudes who looked like they were going to crush us. I let go a spritz of tear gas that I had on me in the train and we ran as it came to a stop at the Morris Street stop. They chas

Buck, naked, has no words. The best he can manage is a dopey strangulated cough. His wife, who is clothed, stands before him, next to the waterbed that took Buck half a day to force into the trailer.

He ordered a palace built, and the builders came to blows, which is why the father’s eyes have swollen shut, and the oldest son’s knuckles are bright plums.

No, your clever costume won’t protect you.

A daydreams about a woman whose name he’s forgotten next to B, who’s been drunk since afternoon.

for spirits and demons have no life/ but what imagination gives

So we stayed on the train admiring the time.

arrogant, sullen,/ supple and ambiguous,// English seems the ideal tongue

Guttering semiotics, The jeremiads of delirium; Drinking lukewarm tea over a late candle Like Hamlet in a power-cut; Affecting his own audience of himself, Hastening soliloquies through gritted sophisms, Withered and spun to intentional…

and the President didn't call.