We all live poorly here. Use mail-in rebates at the hardwood store, get drunk at Sammy’s on Friday [...]

Late but not quite midnight. Marina Melba stands on the communal balcony of the flats. She pulls a cigarette with elegance from a packet. Lights it without looking, eyes [...]

The hotel key was ours. A rectangular piece of hard plastic with the words PLAY SLEEP REPEAT on the front. New York City. That humid summer day when it rained frogs and [...]

We’re together again, three old buds standing in a dark closet at our thirtieth high school reunion. We can hear the eighties music from the auditorium one floor below us. [...]

Her hair sometimes sailed on her. She was a point in the distance, as if the entire universe had poured from a convergence. She thought, It’s just as [...]

Hatchings Parades always made her tired, so it wasn’t surprising that the assassin fell asleep on the roof. As she napped, the roof became quite crowded. A family [...]

My mom just called from the nursing home. She survived another painful heart episode. She asked me how the people liked the Italian songs I sang in church. She has asked me [...]

I couldn’t see my way clear to make it to the annual Gala.  I had RSVPed under self-imposed pressure, but I wasn’t above claiming a sudden illness should anyone mention [...]

I sat on the backstairs, on the top step near the screened kitchen door, waiting. I did a lot of waiting. For Maud Ellen to come talk, or my grandmother, Mamoo, or Daddy [...]

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My mother acts like the conflict between her and me is semantic, rather than due to her crappy parenting. For instance, when I try to talk to her about how when I was a kid [...]

Mariachi in the City A Mariachi walked in the city in the middle of the day. He had a gold trumpet at his side. His Mariachi suit and sombrero were black with gold [...]

Sunday dinner in Columbia, Tennessee: fried chicken, mixed greens— turnips, mustard, and spinach, pan-fried corn, twice milked then stirred with flour and water, candied [...]

After the Orgy After the Sunday orgy, the men changed their shirts. The women changed their shoes. Man #1 swaggered all week. Woman #2 composed a personal ad: [...]

The dolls were drinking Jack Daniels and having an argument. The mother doll said she was through with the father doll and had rented a room in another dollhouse. This room [...]