Most read stories

To Be Undone

21612161 views11 comment11 fav

. . . hands before your face, heart without blood . . .

A Sonnet for Anna

21612161 views3030 comments2020 favs

Toting a sawed-off shotgun at the altar

Moon collar

21612161 views99 comments99 favs

I don't think dogs like to die with the pack. The smell of them rotting brings trouble in the wild,

The Phantom

21602160 views44 comments11 fav

Approaching the kitchen from the foyer the reverb lessened until heel and floor where flint on flint. No spark was made.

Breadfruit

21602160 views88 comments44 favs

... we both know how we go to fresh air like fish, gasping.

The Highwayman Teaches Me About Sex and Death

21602160 views1010 comments88 favs

hooves moon dark latch eyes rope / Bess the landlord's daughter, the landlord's blackeyed daughter / gun breasts dress shame shouts blood blood blood

December 15, 2012

21602160 views77 comments33 favs

Already, I can see that, whenever Harold moves, some of his soul escapes, like an accidental exhalation, like breath on powder.

Improbable Bodies

21592159 views2020 comments66 favs

The book has known many women’s hands, something erotic and frequently checked out from our local library. Its cover depicts a man and a woman, both with improbable if not impossible bodies. I believe the term is bodice-ripper.

Bootstraps

21592159 views22 comments00 favs

I made my way quietly out back and sat in Helga’s whitewashed porch swing, listening to the first faint sounds of big band music drift out of Helga’s open windows and into the cooling summer air. The darkness was moving in slow from the east, interrup

Here be Dragons

21592159 views22 comments22 favs

Most nights while in his sleep, with his one good eye deeply shut, the old man can hear the whispers of the specter in the remote wanderings, holding the surrounding woodlands in its snare. The sound of it closing in, with the bones of the universe crushing in…

Arturo + Lourdes, 2005 and 4ever

21582158 views44 comments22 favs

Here’s the story as compiled from the scantest of clues: The writing on the back of a stall door in the restroom of a twenty-four hour restaurant under the Gowanus Expressway.

Punk

21582158 views2222 comments1616 favs

My mother used to say she'll be just like you and you‘ll deserve it. I was a Punk Rocker. A rebel. Emily worries about things like grades and sports. She's on the soccer team. I got stoned under the bleachers. Emily, is a good kid. …

Looney Tunes

21582158 views66 comments44 favs

I put my arms around her and whisper to her while she plays the piano. She wiggles and tells me to stop it.

Sad News

21582158 views00 comments00 favs

They got out wearing their crisp brown Army jackets and khaki pants; she saw the cross on the lapel of the officer's shirt and just knew. These men brought sad news from faraway places.

The Damp Place

21582158 views88 comments55 favs

As long as he could still take the stairs, he would go down there to be with the memories that each piece held. He knew that their time was about up, because his was too. His wife had already gone, and even before that she had long stopped using the washe

Three Poems in March, after Baca

21582158 views88 comments55 favs

I could love them all, your people, / Learn their differences, speak their tongues, / When there is no one there to hold you / But me, my arms would be wide enough / To hold armies of your need. Do not forget.

The Stick

21582158 views44 comments22 favs

When you finally got blood from the hard stick You spotted the backflash of red And said Thank God. The woman’s legs and arms Were everywhere, and you were in the middle Holding her down with one hand while wielding A butterfly in the other. You stuc

Boy Toy

21572157 views1616 comments99 favs

Sometimes you can't sleep.

Locked in a Small-Town Cage with My Superheroes, and Having No Way to Get an MFA... (Memoir)

21572157 views44 comments33 favs

...I grew up in a provincial town which at the time had no bookstore and no library — no library even at school...

The bridge

21562156 views1919 comments1515 favs

as long as you have some snacks up there I can be brave

Sheer

21562156 views22 comments22 favs

That's when we struggle, got it? Right there on the floor. It's not the brawl of the century, and I'm not the pilot who delivers the Enola Gay.

Bus

21562156 views55 comments44 favs

You can’t take a chandelier on an emergency dash across a nuclear desert.

The Massacre

21562156 views55 comments55 favs

 …

The Things That Danny Said

21562156 views66 comments33 favs

Danny said that you like him now. He smiled like it was the best news that he could give me, but his eyes dared me. …

wanna be a cowboy?

21562156 views1616 comments1313 favs

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

Living in the Lapin of Luxury

21562156 views44 comments11 fav

“There’s cheap land at Cudlee Creek perfect for breeding long-haired rabbits,” he added. “They can’t jump high so fencing costs are low.”

The Perils of Open Hand

21562156 views22 comments22 favs

There are worse things than getting your ass kicked by a 12 year old Puerto Rican kid. This was exactly my thinking as he stood over me, his pre-pubescent screams sounding like a baby Bruce Lee, preparing to finish me off.

Heart Line

21552155 views2424 comments1010 favs

One sunny morning, a big-bellied ball of yellow fur surveyed a yard full of prospective adopters and ran straight to one. She’d been chosen.

Talking about a Friend Over a Cup or Two of Coffee

21552155 views1313 comments1313 favs

Talking about a Friend Over a Cup or Two of Coffee “Their first fight was over school lunches. Free school lunches. She taught Kindergarten in a public special ed center for emotionally disturbed children. The…

Like Counting Raindrops

21552155 views22 comments11 fav

When I glance at the bedside clock I realize that we have been making love in one way or another for nearly three hours now. I am filled with a certain secret smugness that I am still going strong. It has been a long time since I’ve done anything quite li