Mist falls from the opaque sky and splatters crystals in your hair...

Based on length it looked like a note, lacking the deeper illustration found in full-fledged letters, but also missing were condolences and considering the subject, such sympathies might have seemed appropriate: Dear Mr. and Mrs. Madison, Katie is

Short, but true. Damnit.

I am Gloria, age nine, standing with my left hand on the green gate to the yard of the farmhouse that I will always consider Home

It’s been a series of bad clams

I get what you want done from me. You want the old one two sucker punch that goes straightaway through to the tenderest part of the aching heart, the one that tumbles you out of your old worn out gut wrenching way of living life for…

Seven micros

Nobody looks for Gina between the hours of four and five. Her father is on swing shift for the rest of the summer; his two o'clock- dinner plates are soaking in a sinkful of scummy water. Her mother is fanning herself in the shade of the wisteria, most of her…

Lavender, a Liberal Betty, batty from hormones, in a fanciful fit, named her daughter Lavender. Husband Don winced. Brothers Donald, John, Billy, and Tom were puzzled and pleased by this sister, this girl, who was a little bit like them, yet not like them at…

The box thuds at your feet: mug, plant, wedding photo, the 25-year pen.

I try to envision long-haired men riding horses across a vast expanse, their faces blank as those of my students.

I hate turnstiles and revolving doors

they were open weekends if we needed to bring him in for euthanasia.

Unless we see it, probe it, Name it, star by star, and feel This awful, tenuous gratitude.

58 words