Just a few days short of our tenth wedding anniversary, my wife asks me if I’ve ever heard of the Poles Of Inaccessibility. Naturally, I lie and turn away. My attentions are elsewhere, what with the match being on and us the wrong side of a one nil score line, in a...

You can’t resist looking in the mirror. Like this time you might see something different. Maybe a lanky shortstop after a promising rookie season with a couple of four-hit days and an eleven-game hitting streak. Or a gigolo with a waxed mustache and a busty blonde...

MY SON, ELDEST (15 YEARS): Cringes at the smell of porcelain dolls and their paper skirts. Only speaks riddled phrases in the nighttime by my bedside. Is silent except for the parrotlike cawing. Is silent excluding rickety nails against blackboard walls. Makes his own...

I didn't mean to cheat on Sarah. First she had the flu for two weeks and then she left on a trip. Next thing I knew I hadn't seen her in a month. That's when I ran into my ex-girlfriend Carla at the grocery store. Thing is, I forgot Sarah and Carla knew each other....

Milton Berle bought a hot dog at the I-80 Stuckey’s near Booneville, Iowa. True. I wasn’t there, but I believe it. Summers during high school, I worked at that Stuckey’s. Sixteen miles West of Des Moines, I pumped gas and sold pecan nut rolls although I never ate that...

You will find rainbow vomit simmering under humming, buzzing, tubes attached to the ceiling; you will find disgust taped to the commodes of toilet bowls, and cigarette butts will be drinking radioactive water, glowing and bubbling. Thirty steps later, you will find...

We never talked about the job I lost and how long it took to get one back.   We never discussed the children I dreamt of but waited too long to have.   We never mentioned the miscarriage.   Instead, we quarreled over the dishes, the trash, the remote...

Citing a lack of respect from the literary community, the last three letters of the alphabet have announced their intention to secede. X, Y, and Z released a statement: For too long we accepted the status quo, relegated to the end of every list, and lumped together in...

We cannot be defined by where we’ve been. We seem to collect moments, hoard them like music collections. Sometimes acknowledging that this instant in time is a transforming coordinate, you going off on the X axis, me the Y, but this other moment we’ve selected is...

I lie my head on his chest. This is not love. I am listening. He's brought back the sound of the sea on his sweater. It mingles with the tinny voices from the old movie we're watching. The voices that make me want to say words like 'jaunty' and 'top drawer.' He laughs...

I haven’t taken a shower in nine no fourteen no twelve days. Voices say open eyes close eyes needle thread. I trace my fingers over words etched on the door of a graffitied bathroom stall. words written down by girls, so they’ll be remembered. Help! I want to run...

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Ernest Hemingway Maybe there had been a baby shower, and there was a registry with a pair of shoes on the list, but the baby’s grandmother never checked the list, having spent the last few months in Europe, and she picked up the...

Sometimes, voices catch on things—chairs, dressers, curtains. They last longer indoors than out. The sun wears at them and the wind blows them around until they break apart. Sentences become scattered words, and words by themselves aren't useful. I found an apple...

The smoke fills the underside of the bridge, and there is the sound of falling water. My brain is raw from earlier hours on the road, and I wear the miles like an invisible dress, the prettiest material no one can see. Attempting to be casual I sidle just a bit...

The best home safety fire escape ladder, it says on the back of the box, is portable and easy to maneuver. The box is surprisingly light with a lid designed for easy flipping. On the front is a picture of a little boy in blue-and-white rocket pajamas, descending a...