May as well have lived two lives, he thinks: one before memory and one after. And how can you remember someone else's life? You can't. After forty years of living, he realizes that there's no way of knowing what his own eyes have witnessed.

I am a purveyor of leeches. All my friends are purveyors of leeches. We meet weekly to compare our wares.

On some evenings, when I would sneak out of my room, I'd sit on the verandah and count the streetlights. I'd count the stars in the sky and trace the moon with the tip of my finger and consider how anyone could make it through the night when there were so

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.

My mother’s old china no longer reflects. It’s value is now estimated as drywall.

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…

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

At night, instead of sleep, there were new and secret pleasures. Half-awake lessons in dexterity, in the limber material of human life.

You wanted a love poem written just for you. / Here it is. Don’t look askance.

I am a sunflower. I turn my yellow and black face, bruised, to the sun, hoping its light will heal me. With my eyes closed I can see my stamen, veins in my eyelids, bulbous where they intersect. The sun feeds…

Oh, also, had no idea what the whole visit to the Kingdom of the Dead was getting at. Interesting, but seems unrelated to the larger story. I'd cut it. Remember — this is a story about one man's attempt to get home. Stay focused on that.

Six weeks, four thousand dollars, and twelve hundred miles later, I figured I was done with the cleansing process.

Snow sheeted on the river...

what smells like love may not be love at all

"... I knew Willie had gone— out the back door or out the side window. I knew he probably slipped over the fence behind my house into Lou C.’s backyard..."