Cincinnati Review

1 I ask them what they think about. Truly, whatever’s on your mind. Write it down. Anonymously. The mundane. The trivial. The serious. The sublime. Work, one writes. Sleep. Dexter. My best friend’s cystic fibrosis. Stress, says another. Responsibility. Israel. Career. Money, another says. Sandwiches. Parties. Girlfriends. Being an asshole, someone writes, and following, in …

My wife, LauraBeth, and I bought our first house in 2006, in the New Jersey suburbs. I was twenty-four and she was twenty-three. We had money for a down payment because her mother had died and left behind some insurance money. We purchased the house for $175,000, at what I later learned was an obscene …

Little is known about the history of fog. But it is water—billions of microscopic droplets suspended above the earth—and it comes eight ways. Hovering close to the ground, it is the most common, radiation fog. Floating above the lowest points in Appalachia, it is valley fog. Fog drawn inland from the Pacific, or the San …

The dog seller hawks mangy curs across from me at the flea market. Misty brings me a cherry slushie like she’s a woman who takes care of her man. Don’t think I don’t notice she makes a big show of it for mister dog seller. The son of a bitch wears clean overalls. He’s bigger …