I sat in the kitchen with the phone in my hand. The phone had just stopped ringing. When it rang, its screen lit up with the face of the caller. It vibrated and played a tune called "Dusk 2 Dawn." Now the kitchen was silent.

take out the yellowed recipes/ left by mothers and grandmothers—// perhaps the great aunt who never married—

She was outside the house with one of her unlit cigarettes dangling from those chapped lips, she was carrying the can of kerosene and wearing a pair of red Mary Jane shoes, even her footwear smacked of violent drawing mystery.

Ben Clarone watched Dan Arris get into the Brighton Beach Car Service car and leave the departure zone of the Pan Am Worldport terminal at JFK. Ben’s rare all wood contrabass clarinet, which his repairman, Sal Frompini, had spent the last six hours adjust

I'm available most weekends.

Look. There's just you and me, that's all that's left. All the rest of them had already given up a long, long time ago. They dropped their precious, colorful dreams like rusted railroad lanterns, like abandoned pumpkins, and littered the Twitching…

As a boy Edward had stayed in the confessional several times in a row. The priest was drunk and couldn't tell it was the same kid over and over. The tiny door slid open…”Scobbity bobbity…tell me your sins…” Edward confessed what he thought were sins, then said…

I like burning lavender on glowing charcoal and dancing hard, thinking about long futures and deep moments. I want to cry and then scream and I don't feel like cleaning up. If I can keep a rhythm going long enough,I think I can build…

Chewy is an old dog. His face is mostly white.

A door in the hallway, with 30E in brass letters glinting dully on its polished surface, lying sideways on the floor like a beacon.

The moon once rose on its own Now it takes a series of Ropes and pulleys to get it up Because it’s so old And you can hear these audible groans Coming from its craters As it’s forced to listen to forgotten lovers Obsessing over old lov

Marcel Proust had never been to a big-box store before. He was dazzled by the sheer size and scope of the store and the seeming impassivity of the shoppers. So many products, so many shelves, such strangely intriguing examples of the human condition. The people seemed…

Listening to old friends speak the same way, the same things tells me they have been dead a long time. They are in their form of living, their self, there is no new season of growth. I witness each of them continue on the same path because it is familiar

And no one died achieving aristeia/ in this battle. We have come/ at least some little distance.

Before they ever spoke, Linda and Meg had sat next to each other in the cramped lecture hall for three weeks, their thighs touching, while Dr. Laurens showed slides of ancient Japanese art. Meg's eyes never left the screen, but Linda glanced at her as often as she…