Her computer asks her for David’s name the next morning. It doesn’t know that it’s asking after David, it just wants her password, but that’s what Vicky has to give it to…
Buried
They started digging at night; they used the little backhoe against the roses I trenched for the winter just last week, then switched to shovels and now trowels and brushes. From the…
Amnesia
For almost a year I couldn’t even look at her, much less touch her. We’d go over to my brother’s house and I’d sit by the door, still wearing my coat, and…
The Boundary Line
I came home for my first Thanksgiving vacation from college to find my father standing on the curb, his back to the street, staring intently toward the far corner of the back…
Summer Rotation
Two weeks before my sixth birthday, I ran into the house screaming, “Mario’s dead! Mario’s dead!” My mother couldn’t hear my words over the kitchen faucet, but she heard the screen door…
Where the Bones Cry Out in the Long Night
Bellies filled with a lunch of steamed clams, vinegar-drowned french fries and Shipyard Ale, we push through the brambles and Indian paint brushes that crowd the narrow trail up to the graveyard. …
Standing on the Shores of Atlantis, Skipping Stones
They were playing tic-tac-toe without paper on the way to Pictured Rock National Park, imagining the grid with boxes numbered one to nine. “Nine,” Mark said. “Five,” said Albert. “Six.” “Uhh ….
Showing
“I’d like to thank my wife for her refreshing lack of support.” That was how John imagined starting his opening remarks at his first big show. He wasn’t sure if artists still…
Open Every Womb
I saw my first when I was doing a rotation at the clinic on East Lake Street. The girl, thirteen or fourteen, came in with a sprained ankle and asked for a…
Little Fish
He believes he has gone native, with his blue pea coat, a Gauloise smoldering in his fingers, and a baguette from the boulangerie beside the hotel tucked under his arm. In his…