Most read stories

Letter to Neruda

23212321 views99 comments44 favs

You have been my woman’s lover now for seven years, ever since your two souls met at La Isla Negra.

Eight Maids a'Milking

23212321 views00 comments00 favs

“… and that concludes my presentation. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.” Meixu Liao smiled and turned her hands out, palms upwards. Americans typically saw this combination of facial expression and body language as conveyin

The Scientist's Wife

23212321 views44 comments44 favs

You’re ridiculous. Time travel is impossible, Steven.

desire

23212321 views66 comments44 favs

burning for You, caught in between, yearning to remain completely wrapped around Your finger, feeling panoramic, and this alive.

Spring Cleaning for Poets

23202320 views44 comments22 favs

“Can you do something about that those four stanzas of three lines each at the bottom of the basement steps?” my wife asked. "That's a villanelle I'm working on."

compass/ion

23202320 views1414 comments77 favs

a question that (never) left

The Most Beautiful Truth

23192319 views1313 comments88 favs

I still believe in the very slim chanceI might say something luckyenough to reach your truest insides, your at homespirit, that you will hearand understand ascare on my part, evenif you can never quiteidentify me asits secret sender, that warm…

Danger Above, Danger Below

23192319 views2525 comments1414 favs

And you know that notion just goes to show...

Augustinian Prayer Sonnet

23192319 views1717 comments1010 favs

He kissed her tits and thought of art

We're All Guys Here

23182318 views66 comments77 favs

The doorbell rang while Ron was masturbating.He closed his eyes tight. Tried to hold the image of Lori bent over the arm of the couch. No use. It was gone. Ron sighed, then levered the recliner down. Tied on the terry-cloth robe Lori had given him. He kicked aside an empty…

The Heart Does Not Know What It Cannot Have

23182318 views55 comments33 favs

“I take him to see all those sexy movies,” she said, “because it puts the passion back in him. I love what he does to me when we get back home after those movies.”

On Writing about Velveeta

23172317 views11 comment11 fav

You are fishing in a coffee cup. (Your fishing pole is a record player.)

Bison

23172317 views1717 comments77 favs

To make extra money, my father wrote music reviews for the Calgary Herald, and on Saturday nights, he went to hear the Symphony, or into recital halls to listen to the chamber music that was being performed around the city. He took me, once, to a performa

Italy, 1990

23172317 views66 comments33 favs

She...learned the ways of men, especially foreign men, who eyed her mother even as they passed around pictures of their children, wallet-bound photographs that included their reluctantly smiling wives.

King of the Mountain

23162316 views66 comments55 favs

Daniel told himself to push. -- push harder than he'd ever pushed himself before. He reminded himself of what his father once told him: don't give in to pain. Be a real man. You can take it.

Hands

23162316 views1212 comments1111 favs

pressing my hands into the voice in the bed,

"You Go"

23162316 views44 comments22 favs

You like your life. Ducks march in a row. You've reached a certain age but you're strong. Healthy. You've got food, clothing, shelter. You have insurance and important papers. You don't have a man in your life, and you admit— Admit nothing. The…

Re: “oo===D---o-}-<,” Fiction Submission

23162316 views11 comment11 fav

Fake letter, 55 words.

A Sunday Afternoon in Paris

23152315 views2424 comments1616 favs

He would lean on his window sill in the evening and watch the whores. They wore gaudy clothes and too much makeup.

Haze

23152315 views66 comments33 favs

I slide my hand under the sheets. It’s cool there. An impression. This is where she would be.

The Bottle

23152315 views88 comments55 favs

That bottle just sits there in the closet, next to the hats and a box full of old gloves. Years it’s been there. Try as we might, we never open it. We just don’t have a damn thing to celebrate. Who was it brought that bottle into our lives and went and ruined …

French Fries

23142314 views4343 comments1414 favs

Tuesdays she worked afternoons at the bookstore, and he’d secretly go, buy a large order, sit in a corner with a newspaper. Fries covered in vinegar, veins of ketchup.

Relationship S&M

23142314 views66 comments66 favs

"Absolutely. I get better at it all the time." he confidently replies. He reminds me that it was all her idea. They were online friends when she suggested it. "She loves it." he tells me again, but I think of her sad eyes as she walked upstairs to tend to

Peacemaker

23142314 views1414 comments44 favs

He had the cannonball head of Hemingway, the stump neck, sloping shoulders and barrel chest.

After Dinner/Ice Melts/A Sage in the Copse

23142314 views3535 comments1414 favs

AFTER DINNER Another cycle gone, wasted. She stares into her bowl of full-fat ice cream (just half a cup a day, every day, for fertility). Beside her sits her husband, building a sundae. When he's done she reaches over, picks the cherry off the top, and hurls it into the…

to day

23132313 views1717 comments55 favs

I turn my head. Time starts running.

Berto and Cosi

23122312 views22 comments00 favs

Berto had come to live with me a month earlier. He’d been cursed by being the favored child of our parents. Their indulgence resulted in a 40 year old man and heroin addict from age 17 and all that accompanies such an existence such as thievery, larcen

The Sum Above

23122312 views1515 comments1414 favs

The mandatory is not / your friend

Autumn Offering

23122312 views88 comments55 favs

You may gather from me the spring of my youth

Sugarfoot Pond

23112311 views1313 comments1111 favs

i was jus countin' your heartbeats, Emmie and you know what? i think they's the same as mine!