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How Elm Trees Die

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I had felt suddenly lighter and next thing I knew I was watching Leonard Tucker and Sister William from somewhere near the ceiling. I saw myself, too, at my desk, holding my songbook out in front of me like everyone else.

He's Just Not That Into You -Part I

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“Too perfect.” my therapist intervenes in assurance, “You did enough, really. More than anyone else would.” I know the subtext is that I possibly did more than I should. My appointment is coincidentally later that day, after his goodbye letter arrives in

Epithelial Sample

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I found my black dot nucleus. School got me in the 10th year with the numbers spilling outta my head, but now I got the cell on my mind. Everybody's floating around this joint all pink and green college clean, yellow face Japanese, or the jet-headed Greeks with their…

Not from the self but from the Other

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meanings figure into traffic streams reds fade, trickle down the long ‘V' another passing human ear; tall, tall buildings paper poised on horizon. situations gape in and out of seconds corners turn to disappearance, witness follows fingers…

I Don't Know How the Nights Can Be So Long When Life Is So Short

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The tall, standing woman with bright red lipstick, elegant at one time, you could tell, responding, “She has dementia,” pointing at her brain. “She was a Holocaust survivor.” And the one they’re talking about turns as she’s pushing her wal

CONFUSION

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She asks if I would like to join them.

My Fictional Tormenter

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Having a single blurb on your book cover is like having a single friend in grade school. So I lied.

The Way Back Home

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500 miles all the way from Omaha nine hours on the back of a flatbed truck

Clay Women

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"... 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..."

Turtle Summer

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He was her summer fling, the first cock to crow when the sun rose over her tequila smile.

Half a Lotus

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An Ayurvedic astrologer tells her that she is a child of India. Is a girl born in Indiana a mistake of just two letters on a Scrabble board?

The Death App

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The phone owner pre-writes his or her dying words! The app stores them and releases them at the moment of his death!

Fallen Women 1010

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Like all professors, I'm required to maintain office hours to help my students so I'm at my desk every fourth Tuesday of months without an "r" in them from 10:30 to 11:00 p.m.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation... When I Wasn't Drinking

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This is what my summer has come to: me, out of a job, aimlessly driving around the city looking for places to write, places to read, places to occupy my time.

Out of the Loop

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Ed wants to watch the last half of the football game. His wife wants him to mow the lawn.

Squirrel Boy, You Are My Toy

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unbury yourself from the silt and give me some seal love.

Time

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Tell Bono I want my seventy bucks back.

Bedbugs

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I'm in awe of her frankness, how she takes my breath away, how I wish to rush off with her to a splendid hideaway where only the two of us touch the grape-stained mountains and the cerulean sea, wild blades of grass quivering with the breeze. Sometimes th

Arcana Magi Memorial - c.5

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Azure became silent. She never thought of her death before, nor thought about actually fighting creatures and saving people’s lives.

Hand and Thumb

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Often we sit in silence and age. We are observers of dust, fashioning ourselves into antiques.

One A.M. at the Beau Rivage

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After the show they talked at the famous comedian, reaching the way they do, with their arms. Their arms are curved a good way, a better way than the older white planes of my own.

Phantom Sister

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We wonder if this is how we tangled in our mother's womb: hands to feet to heart.

Statistics (or: Walking to Work through Lexington Market)

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I avert my gaze to the crab grass pushing through broken concrete, the spent condoms, the empty vodka nips rolling at her stockinged feet...

Lovelies on the Last Shore

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All of those lovelies, pitched on the ground, ignored and ready to rot.

Smartphone

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I believe in theCollective conscienceOf Mankind Whatever the masses wantComes into fruitionSome genius will create itIf we want warWe will get warWe don't want peaceSo we never get itJust consider The smartphoneWhat a great deviceIt seems as if we should neverBe bored…

Without Consent

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You never thought you were capable of rape.

Mississippi Burning

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“There are no inhibitions in here,” the postman shouted, gesturing at the dance floor with his Marlboro Light, the glowing tip aimed at a woman in a taut skirt. Leaning far forward, her hands nearly touching the plywood floor, she planted her feet and beg

Hold Your Shield, Front Guard

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Casting nets like Jesus to a metaphor sea Admittedly as weak as me But I need the hike, Like we still like Ike To tell us about the Military Industrial Complex Though he never told us what came next

Scoop

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“What about the other groups coming here?” I ask. “Were they asked what they wanted in these houses?” She turns and looks at me, like I've suddenly come onto her radar.

X

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We draw a treasure map in the sandwait for the waves to wash it awayI ask you not to leave me stranded hereIf I'm bound for hell, I don't want to be left behindThe sun breaks through the edge of infinityspills over the line, soaking the sky…