My daughter, now four, can count to 15 in Spanish. How old are you? Cuatro. How old will you be on your birthday? Cinco. She likes Dora and thinks Diego is weird.

(un mort petit) If I told you the moment of death is just that, a moment nothing more

I watched haunted as my pearl tooth circled the rotten porcelain sink. I could feel my hair thinning and my pale skin suddenly felt too loose.

Now Carver Smithton has a paunched belly as stout as the beer that fills it. His upper lip is thick, fat and flat like a caterpillar run over by a semi on Highway 17.

Twisting and twirling, nearing velocity terminal, the wishbones in their chests rise and fall with the cadence of different bird songs calling. As they whistle down each is distinctively screaming.

When we lived in the attic we were make-believe.

The pantry door squeaked slightly when opened. It sounded like an admonishment. After all, he wasn’t hungry. But he stood there, in his threadbare socks and drawstring pants, staring at the life she had accumulated for them.

He tapped his foot, swished his hips, swaying across the worn tile floor with an invisible partner in his arms, the batter-coated spoon still clutched in his right hand, momentarily forgotten. Nearly a decade had passed since he last shared a dance with h