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.

“The price of everything's gone up,” I say. “But I don't have to buy you chocolate if it's costing too much.” She says nothing and bends her head again, gnarled hands slowly breaking a family-sized chocolate block into pieces.

In Nebraska, we found a dead man lying between the furrows of a field. He’d been there awhile in the heat and the sun, the only shade provided by a cloud of flies. The dead man lay on the ground, decaying, disappearing into the dirt:

All night the moon had watched him, and he’d been unable to return its stare. Finally there was sunlight, and Joško took up his rifle and rucksack. He had trouble keeping his balance at first, but gradually his legs steadied.

You’re the girl that would sneak out to poetry readings instead of parties, watching fierce semi-bearded men reading their poems from hand-stapled zines.

Male genitals were usually portrayed diminutively in classical art. After forty minutes in a drafty room without cloths on, I was beginning to understand why.

With such an attitude, it is remarkable that Jerome Quinth would be the one to make first contact with the beings from Lepton Six. As near as authorities could piece together from the charred remains, the historic event happened innocently enough on on

The light, oblique and waning, filters through butcher’s paper to reveal a body suspended in death but never decomposing.

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…

Albert Walks When Albert walks he is astonished. Ripe fruit falls to the ground at his feet, offering itself. The earth's tremor rumbles, celebratory, through his mended shoes and up his shins. The birds darting through the sky above …

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

burnt-up leaves rustle and fall

In the blue of the yard the twins boil and scrape, twisting about beneath the sycamore tree.

"The cops are just doing what they're being paid to do."

ornery women / in tall hats, suspender dads, kids deformed with / ribbons