Dumber Than
A box of rocks. That boy—oh, you know the one. Dropped his cat from that second-story sleeping porch just to see if it was true, what they said about cats always landing on their feet. Bawled when that tabby hit and bounced, lay dead on the cement walk. Dumber than dirt. One day in school,...
Ed
Summer reminds me, God knows why, of my friend Ed, who is a whole species of man unto himself, the only one of his kind, the very archetype and all possible subsequent permutations of Edness in his own singular person. He is sensible, brilliant, unusually accomplished – he’s a neurosurgeon of great skill, a self-taught...
Pop Art
In nine years I have been graced with three children and here is what I have learned about them. They are engines of incalculable joy and agonizing despair. They are comedy machines. Their language is their own and the order of their new halting words has never been heard before in the whole history of...
Planet Unflinching
It used to be an axiom that an object cannot occupy two positions at the same time, but now, of course, one may argue that in cyberspace it is possible to do just that. Perhaps someday it will also be possible to occupy the same position at two different times. At the dinner table, there...
The Boat People
The women here put on their makeup like rust-proofing. Preschoolers toddle through the trailer park mud puddles, splashing and pimp-cussing. Teenage girls in sweat pants and ratty NASCAR t-shirts smoke over parked strollers, hips set at a permanent baby-propping cant. The afternoons oxidize like trailer tin. Still, there are boyfriends, and emotions worth screaming over,...
Her Numbers
First there is the number I found affixed to the sole of her foot one summer night, as she slept, her hair cascading, her face calm in repose, the faraway hollow ringing of a bay buoy in the night air: 75365, printed on a tiny slip of paper. After a moment I realized that it...
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