no one likes a bitchy cowboyhike up yer britchespull yer brim down'nshut up and ridestop making petsout of peevesand idolsout of gossipinsteadmake a hobbyout of yer horseand fer godsakesseason that saddle

once wedding cake under pillows. now fluffy frosting on squashed defeat

Only the occasional kindness of a stranger,// The curve of his back, a slope rushing past me,// Is luminous, the coin pressed in my hand . . .//// And yes, I beg.//// I open my palm// As Jesus did.//

I see those shoes and the status they confer, and I know what they cost.

Mama hung them everywhere. It started with just a few, in our apartment and outside on the brick. She made walls into windows.

In a few brief moments the entire sky became full of this wetness and greyed to the point of almost blackening, and it was a Sunday morning, and the man thought that thoughts were strange things, because he had a piercing epiphany that there was no God..

At night, on these New England roads, there is no light, no pink sodium-vapor glow, no guideposts.

I can feel the souls of those who perished here They’re still here like old kites hanging in the sky tattered, but they won’t come down or can’t come down just yet because they haven’t fulfilled their unborn promises t

Danica saw her hand with the ring lifted up by Oryn. Both of their eyes locked onto the red gem and Danica understood what Oryn offered.

I remember the tan guinea pig, dead of dehydration. Through the wire bars of her cage I viewed her body. She lay stiff on her side, stretched out, as if in her guinea-pig dream she had been running through grassland, open and close to the sky.

I watch my mother and my daughter, each wondering in her own quiet way about where this story will go next.

“Cheng Ho didn’t go just Cape Horn; treasure ships visit Australia and America. His very advanced compass. Not just point north-south. Show east-west too.”

His birthday buddy was like a wife to him: they were born a day apart. This was coordinated, he believe, in the womb. Well, to be more accurate, wombs. She was due two weeks earlier but waited; he two weeks later but cut his womb-time (as the kids call i

but let's stop and take another look at things could it be through our closed eyes that we didn't really know what we were talking about that there never was a surprise

I am wearing stolen socks. Not because I haven't any of my own, and not because they are an exact fit. Only because they soothe my emptiness inside.