1367 7 7
|
Suddenly everything is delaminating
People are popping right off
the surface of humanity
I am coming loose from my previous lives
|
1921 7 7
|
The watermelon slices were painted wood, because they held their shape better in the heat. The photo was done night-for-day with bright spotlights to make for sharper outlines than natural light could provide. In actuality, it is all shadows.
|
1500 10 6
|
Blending in at a rock concert in ballet flats was harder than I thought it would be. The heavy eye makeup and lit cigarette I never brought to my lips put me somewhere between “Trying Too Hard” and “Bless Her Heart.”
|
684 6 4
|
At my daughter's wake Mr. Aleford, her teacher, poked out his pointy nose, sniffing my cologne. How could I be plastered with this, at a time like this? Well, dear Sir, Two reasons. One, to hide the booze. And two, because my wife and I had made feverish love that…
|
1164 9 7
|
perhaps I am only being transported not for replacement but for repair
|
1217 13 6
|
I said he was cold. I said I like cold.
|
1056 8 7
|
In its own defense
against what is too concrete
the mind allows a magical thought--
|
1138 13 6
|
I tell people that we leave out food for the creatures to appease the skunk gods.
|
1768 10 6
|
—Pretty tulips, said the woman.
|
1513 14 6
|
and the smiles light the way
when the wind blows the darkness
|
1616 8 7
|
We want our lives even-cut, …
|
107 11 7
|
|
626 7 5
|
|
1288 7 7
|
She tossed the big bird into the air. It wobbled, then flew away.
|
2308 17 6
|
The Boys The Boys, they call my brothers in the neighborhood, or Those Boys. The Taylor Boys. Sometimes, Mom calls them Thing One and Thing Two, like in The Cat in the Hat. Those bad boys. Nobody has brothers like my brothers, kicked off the school bus, barred…
|
2865 4 6
|
I was seeking nothing more than this: to have my suit altered.
|
929 14 6
|
|
1713 12 4
|
Stories Around People An Event Facebook lived in midtown, for there the people and windows shone like water. Though it would board the bus—1 day—and ride to the sea, where people said words like sea and where the city shone in the waves…
|
1592 12 7
|
But those burning red numbers persist in my mind
and I can't rest 'till they're gone
They always come back
Like the cat in that childhood song.
|
1705 10 6
|
It’s always fun and easy/
to punish the poor
|
1710 8 6
|
“Mules don’t like to dive, Esther.”
“I said maybe, Hugh. Maybe.”
|
1707 6 6
|
I may be the shadow that I am, but I only ever loved you.
|
1470 10 6
|
They couldn’t have done it better if they’d waved guns around in the air.
|
948 7 7
|
The monkey did not live for long. He’d lost interest in the stuffed dog pretty much right away. The farther away the shuttle, the more garbled and fanciful the sign language the monkey had been taught became.
|
1816 11 7
|
I am so happy to see winter almost gone
|
1060 9 7
|
Antibiotic ointment didn't help. Maybe Granny medicine would.
|
1201 9 7
|
The same, some things you Can't explain, most trees Have felt it go bone dry at the roots before. I've learned to let love Go bye bye. You think they don't Want to answer your pathetic knocks, But they're…
|
1201 8 7
|
I ask if anyone has a poem or a story they would like to read. Everybody's hand shoots up.
|
911 9 7
|
No one believed me when I told them this: I took all of my novels and tossed them into the fire.
|
1617 7 6
|
He hasn't had a wedding ring in years. When George's knuckles began to swell — a little arthritis — his ring dug into his finger so bad his wife Loren took him to the ER and had it cut off. The ring, not the finger. He never knew there was a tool to cut rings,…
|