The four-leaf clover should not have been there, caught in Esteban's hair. It was a surprise there was any clover at all. The cows had already been through twice that week, pulling at the remnants of ... [+]
The four-leaf clover should not have been there, caught in Esteban's hair. It was a surprise there was any clover at all. The cows had already been through twice that week, pulling at the remnants of ... [+]
Books are gentle companions. Usually.
Except for that one time I was just about murdered by books.
That was twenty years ago . . .
***
I didn't know what to do with my
... [+]
Kitsy Boo hated his name.
"Kitsyyyyyyyyyyy," his owner, Marguerite, would call. "Boooooooooooooo!"
Every time the shaky old voice called for him, the other neighborhood animals would laugh.
... [+]
Purple Lakers cap,
just back,
from a family trip to Los Angeles.
Or maybe,
we had been
... [+]
I sit in a chair
that melts to nothing
beneath me. I close my eyes
because she says I can
... [+]
The wind was sharper this close to the water. Hands trembling, Astrid hurried to zip her jacket before the ride operator checked her seatbelt. She wished her tremors had more to do with the chill in ... [+]
Phineas wished, for the two-thousand-three-hundred-and-twenty-third time, that he had a different name. His father was in the army, and the family moved fairly often. No, unfairly often. There was ... [+]
Keep in mind there were three daughters,
One graceful and pretty, one fierce and
gallant, one
... [+]
Anna knew the bridge was a mistake before she and Henry even got there. Maybe it was because he had said he thought it was strange for full grown adults to interrupt a conversation to swoon over an ... [+]
Binaural classics on repeat while she
sleeps and writes and eats, and
D, vitamin variety, fo
... [+]
"I may be some time," he said,
easing on his fleece-lined boots.
We laughed and clinked ou
... [+]
"Are you scared?" I ask Dad over the phone.
"What do I have to be scared about?" he says. "We're locked in our rooms."
He's always been tough like that, stoic, but I wish I could see his face, hug
... [+]
Amongst my mother-in-law's hoarded treasures,
a rusted Normal Rockwell tin
weighted down
... [+]
The sun struck my eyes as I rubbed the sleep off them. I stretched and yawned and felt the air. The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up straight. I couldn't help but smile because deep inside ... [+]
Like pasteboard, the seeping planks
buckle underfoot, marked easily
with fingernail or jagged
... [+]
He said,
"Everyone is buying it like mad."
"And you need another 40 rolls?"
I said.
He
... [+]
I ignored him until he throttled down. That was not normal.
It was a pleasant night, but an hour after curfew. City lights from Saigon to the east turned the dark a velvety purple, and the sweet
... [+]
Dare we invite the dreamwolf in,
to jump through our chaste window,
carry us over the midnight
... [+]
At first, it seemed a movement of
spontaneous joy;
a pause,
a stretch of arms and hands,
a
... [+]
Joe's knuckles bled, the result of inflation.
Tonya was some sort of greedy little Tinker Bell wannabe. She even had the wings to go along with it. She wore them every single day. The whole idiotic
... [+]
I muse my bed
deep think to the ceiling
I hungry the biscuit tin
lazy the sofa
watch an
... [+]
I don't recommend it.
You might wind up like me,
with spiders on your lips,
crawling out like
... [+]