The first time John slept with Emily her boxer, Tyson, climbed into the bed and refused to budge, shifting his ninety pound bulk until, his derrière coming to rest at last against John’s head, he became a one-dog band, snoring… Read more ›
Sans aucune doute, it was cousin Jacques the poet in the family. He lived near Domrémy where Jeanne first had her visions. Jacques’ visions were of a different kind, inspired by Verlaine, Rimbaud, shellac and bad hashish. He faithfully recorded… Read more ›
Aunt Mildred’s pinched an angel’s cheeks again, leaving thumbprints the size of walnuts Zei gesunt, she tells him, how much you’ve grown. She and Uncle Louie harangue each other at such high volume that God Himself stuffs his ears with… Read more ›
My daughter felt the first labor pangs as she dribbled a shovelful of dirt on her mother’s grave. In the still small hours Jonah was born_ and eight days later we prepared for the bris, shaking out the crumbs of… Read more ›
If ever we should meet again it would be on the beach in Cozumel. I’d follow the footprints in the sand that snaked between the raked piles of seaweed and plastic bottles and the milky turquoise sea. I’d pass the… Read more ›
Ed looks at the photo and says, your wife is gorgeous as if she were a snazzy Rolex picked up for next to nothing on the Net. You should see her in the morning, I reply, with traces of Kubuki… Read more ›
In your hands, the fuchsia, which had never lasted, survived the winter and bloomed again in spring. At the first sign of frost, you took them in and placed them in a warm spot by the window, caring for them… Read more ›
in Jonah’s little world as cozy as a fire the trains have painted faces you wave to them Hi Thomas and they wink back chugging up the mountain with boxcars full of toys for the patient girls and boys on… Read more ›
My father said that everyone Should stick to his own kind, Jews to Jews, Colored to colored, Latin to Latin, Sorted and labeled Like nails and screws and bolts In jars along the shelf. Uncle Morris railed against Spic gangs… Read more ›
Everything at his grandma’s house sighed with the burden of advancing age, the sagging sofa with its threadbare antimacassar, the chipped Italian figurines, the peeling grey linoleum on the kitchen floor. Even the parakeet hovering on his clipped wings had… Read more ›