Recommended stories

Phantom Sister

16351635 views1313 comments1515 favs

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

Fatuous Dialogue #1

15871587 views1818 comments1313 favs

—Was it true, what you wrote in that poem? —Pretty true. —What do you mean “pretty true”? Was it true or wasn’t it? —It was as close as you get to truth in poems.

Lens

15891589 views2929 comments1212 favs

Night fell and the photographer slept, one hand between Prue's legs.

Requiem for a Glass Heart

67106710 views2525 comments99 favs

The stone thrower lives in a glass house with his glass family. His neighbors often stop in front of his home and stare at the flesh and blood man as he goes about the business of living with his glass wife and glass child, their glass furniture and glass lives.Every…

Postcard

16741674 views2020 comments1313 favs

A tiny story, 55 words, just enough to fit on a . . .

Beasts

13001300 views2020 comments1313 favs

It isn't for you to know

The Painter, the Actor, the Piano Player

12831283 views1313 comments1414 favs

1.As fast as that I wake to astonishing desire. I'd met you at my parents' house just the weekend before but for them (them the drained students trying to relax, refill before their afternoon sessions) you are the stranger in the room,…

The Evening News

12441244 views1818 comments1414 favs

When I got home from work I parked my briefcase in the hall, acknowledged our dog and immediately went into the kitchen where wife, Sherry, was cooking supper. Without turning around at the sink, she said her usual, How was your day? I said, Fine, and yours? She turned…

Three Micros

10581058 views1515 comments1313 favs

I asked the hospice nurse about maggots.

Tomorrows Never Written and Subsequent Unrehearsed Memory

17361736 views66 comments33 favs

For some, a vertical pattern will evoke prison bars, for others, product bar codes.

Animals in Reverse

19461946 views2424 comments1313 favs

She was still alive when I started to write the story of her life, called Lucy's Story, about her recovery from catnip, but it was not the real story. In the fake story, she took the subway to A.A.

Yeah Yeah I Will I Promise

16951695 views1111 comments44 favs

After we have sex I slip cash into your purse, just a few bucks, without you knowing. You're not a whore, but I'd like to buy you lunch sometime without having to be there.

Waste

764764 views1515 comments1111 favs

When the compost thaws the past oozes out into the present....

Prompts

16031603 views1616 comments1313 favs

Write a poem in which your father is a dog and you are his leash.

Accounting

13321332 views1717 comments1414 favs

It shouldn’t take that long to count/ to six but when the six are cats, arithmetic/ assumes Heisenbergian properties/ as the objects counted defy the count.

tiny thoughts

10991099 views2525 comments1212 favs

what if I die?

Napomo 17: April 7-12

14531453 views2222 comments1212 favs

The drinking will continue/ until morale improves

Of Tongue and Cheek

11401140 views1616 comments1313 favs

Our beautiful currencies and stamps/ disappear into the digital vortex/ of accelerated appetites.

Predator

13541354 views1313 comments1010 favs

Uncounted hens and piglets/ die at my demand. The killing floor// runs red for me. I am/ monstrous to creatures small and great,

The August Heartbreak Suite of Sorrow's Poems

24882488 views1919 comments1414 favs

My heart hurts as I miss you here./This was your intention, I know./ And nor is my reaction unique.

An Episode of Boxes

16601660 views1616 comments1111 favs

In this episode the children in the classroom will all wear boxes over their heads and will search the room with their hands. Their hands will be hands that have been reconnected. Their hands will wear seams as sleeves and curse in red. The hands that…

Victory

16811681 views2727 comments1111 favs

As soon as she left, I sat down at the computer. Booted up. Read my e-mail, then looked at pictures of bare-naked ladies.

Motive

15831583 views1717 comments1313 favs

about killing

Minnows

26692669 views1111 comments1212 favs

I combed the ocean for my minnows while Hattie's giraffes multiplied like spider plants, all yellow and brown on the dry yellow savanna, propelled by their gauche necks, awkward in their bodies, bodies rooted to the feet of the humming planet.

Basics

17781778 views1717 comments1111 favs

When the whistle drops, do not take any guff.

Full Circle

12841284 views1515 comments1313 favs

I staggered away in the storm tears frozen to my cheeks.

The balloon of you

13941394 views1717 comments1313 favs

and the mass exceeds the buoyancy/ and gravity pulls you back,

Mixtape

23492349 views2121 comments1111 favs

12. Paper Wings (Gillian Welch) This one's really depressing. Maybe you shouldn't listen to it so much.

War Nurses and Lost Fathers - For Memorial Day

19921992 views1717 comments99 favs

I have been mother to a hundred soldiers, holding their hands barely knowing their names

Birthday Boy

12651265 views00 comments1212 favs

"I called him a fucking loser and left."