an old Black woman, a sequined black cap poised on the left of her crown of black infused gray hair.  A gray wool shawl that seemed to perfectly match her hair's color wrapped her all the way down to her hips, where a battered pair of blue jeans rested

Tombstones are only granite symbols of a man’s life, Gus thought as he changed lanes. Children, they were the ultimate epitaph.

People go through life all the time with only one kidney, or with some of their female-parts removed.

“Your brain, your brain tries to make sense of things like this, specially life-threatening weird shit, so in my mind the grass was on fire and driving out swarms of invisible bees that were stinging us to death. Invisible killer bees. You don’t shoot be

To be honest, I've always wanted to be black

The stone floor was cold and the sky above had a purple haze. The setting sun hid beyond the trees outside the crumbled walls. Vines reached over the well as if it grabbed it like hand.

Together at last, we'd gotten this far toward the warm end of those sweet Promises we made, once, with our sincerest written and passed down smart Words, done all on our own deeds, with some real gusto, and offered them as Christmas Lights,…

Conceptio culpa Nasci pena Labor vita Necesse mori

By the thousands youngsters swarmed into the streets shuffling aimlessly, many mumbling to themselves, heads bowed as their eyes stared fixedly at the plastic devices in their hands.

I've been invited to speak at Emerson College in Boston—it will be the summer of 2012, and I'll be speaking on running an online literary magazine; in this case, my own, Anderbo.com.

Excessively. And this worried her, of course.

Upon learning the fetus has fingernails, Missy texts her boyfriend: It has nails! He won’t reply because he’s just left for war, but she does it just the same.

She sang will you still need me

The summer everyone read Faulkner, I read Hemingway. Out of spite.

Tell Bono I want my seventy bucks back.