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 …
There was no reason to see Terra shirtless so many times and at such length, but she insisted on taking off her bra—even when it wasn’t necessary, even when it inconvenienced the doctor—and so we sat, every two weeks, staring at her chapped nipples. “They’re supposed to look like this,” Terra assured us, though she …
The thing about guilt: it’s so unattractive and I’m so good at it. And I’m thinking: How can I read the poems without buying the book online because the book’s being sold by a third party and my old boyfriend will address the envelope to me, no doubt, because he’s the third party. I also …
Tonight we the living gather to meditate on death—while eating hamburger sliders, in fact, and pumpernickel crackers spread with pâté, plus celery and carrots and various berries and wine that comes in a box but is not that tacky college kind. The spread is part of the funeral home’s Life Well Lived package, which also …
Eudora loved her life. She had been sober three years and nicotine-free for two and a half. She had not quit her necessary day job. She had not stayed involved with an abusive boyfriend. She had made love to a man who became her best friend and never again her lover. Her weight was right, …
The Canadian comes to us with blue-black eyes and a forehead like the cliffs of Santorini. We think that he is Greek, but the Canadian is quick to correct us. He is Jewish, and he is standing in my doorway, and he wants to know the way to Giorgos’s taverna. Yianni looks the Canadian up …
My husband wanted to go to a minor-league hockey game. You mean, before you die? I asked. No, he said, tonight, there’s a game tonight, I want to go to a minor- league hockey game tonight. It seemed a dumb thing to want to do. But in our marriage vows we had sworn that we …
Our drummer wants to know how our spirits are. He’s the only one who thinks we’ll make it. Our drummer sees light, swears the storm’s over. Our drummer, the embodiment of the world’s worst cover of Sublime’s “What I Got,” pleads with us: “This is nothing—dudes, this is nothing!” The van’s gray upholstering droops down …
“We’re supposed to run,” Grant says. It’s dinner. We eat at the small round kitchen table underneath the multicolored rustic light fixture, which casts a warm rainbow glow. This is where Family Time is served. Also, it’s Taco Night. Classical music is playing from our iWhatever on the countertop. My wife likes to keep it …
These days Isabelle’s exhaustion anchors itself in strange places. She feels it in her sagging wrists and the top of her head. As warm static at her fingertips. An oil slick in the gut. She’s been the night attendant at the Speedway for seven and a half years. Never before has daytime sleep eluded her …