Urban skunks want to visit your neighborhood and be bold in your neighborhood.

I remember one afternoon when Terry and I did it in broad daylight in a nearby park in Lombard, or Glen Ellen. This was after we had broken up already and I was seeing Jolene, I think, before leaving to go out to my writing program at U.C. Irvine. It wa

the old once new me

When I was eighteenI worked at a convenient storeAnd the owner was from PakistanAnd he dressed well and Smelled of cologneAnd owned two storesAnd was always going back and forthBetween the two of themHe had to make sure we were doingOur jobsAnd whenever some kid…

I liked her when I first saw herShe came to meI liked her hair and body and eyesBu there was something wrong with Her teethScarred beautyI hit it off with her easily at the barThe others didn't like herShe was a cookShe told me about her narcolepsy, ADHD, Tourettes…

We jam into the green tent as it begins to rain. His casket is covered with flowers and there is the picture you took of him, the day you climbed the fire tower from where you could see forever, past his smiling face the bars and a million changing leaves.His pregnant girl…

I've been a fan of hagiography—the lives of the saints—since first grade when Claude Dunham and I were asked to represent St. Stephen and St. Sebastian, two martyrs of the early church, in a tableau vivant of bored boys.

Maria met her husband in World War Two. Maria is now eighty-two. She is from the country of Tuscany. She has lived in may countries. She was a war bride. She has a son. Maria's son is sixty-three. As a baby-boomer he won't retire until sixty-five Maria says.…

I love you, I said. A beautiful smile struggled through the pain. But I love you more.

I was disappointed with love, and like everyone else, stammered out of love into a place horrified with meaning.

Sam tapped the stick against the small mountain of trash bags, a dull thud predictably followed by a dozen rats scurrying out of the mass. He's started to make a personal game of it — seeing how many he can kill with one whack; if he swings hard enough, and in…

Ronnie comes home carrying two sacks of groceries, one including a four-pack of Virgil's root beer. This is heavy stuff. It amazes me she is able to carry these items up our steep hill, nearly a mile in distance. I watch the news on our French cable station while she…

I sold my ego to pay a parking ticket. And then I wrote 77 words about mental health.

Molly was from dull and wet Kansas City, Missouri, where she learned to pass the time in the many record shops and bars that lined it's inconspicuously storied streets, catching the attention of a young red blooded all American Kansas City man, from time

scratches