Father C’s cassock had the familiar reek of Player cigs and sweat as Tommy inched forward, squeezing the perfect stone overhead like he was waiting for the whistle, ready for a throw-in. When it was done, the old Pad gurgled a bit, snatched at the chain of his pectoral cross—as if he could pull himself out of the fix with it—and face-planted with a clang off the cruddy wheelbarrow into a heap of leaves. Only…

In a souvenir shop, weekend trip, my wife resting at our hotel, I encountered a stranger I did not like, close to my age, sixties or seventies. He seemed to be staring right through me. Did he suspect me of something? Did I remind him of someone he perceived as loathsome? Did he think he knew me? He did not look familiar to me, though he did remind me of other people who felt at…

You write that summer did not take long to reach its end. And how, as you write this letter, it’s already dark outside and you’re waiting for the storm. The wind is picking up, you tell me. Your penmanship gets a bit shaky, the next bit says, as far as I can make out, the windows are waiting to be closed at the last minute. I can see you clearly settled in the red chair,…

Ēadweard, the oldest Edward, barked a lot at fellow fisherman whilst in a tippy early bark.  Bark, roughened from the prettier French barque. Then came Edrus or Edward the 5th, a snappy serf. Eduard, a yelly woodcutter who'd bark his shins with his axe, was the 8th or 9th. Eventually—we shall never know when, why—the hard layers of bark protecting the heartwood softened and peeled. Revealing in 1906, Edward the whatever-eth, the quiet. My grandpa.…

A woman runs. Her gauzy nightgown blotted red against a prison of dark grey sky. She bursts through the doors of a 24-hour market. Scrambles. Down aisles with rows of cartons. Are you my baby!? An egg peeks out. Barbs of light crisscross the store. A lone cashier rushes out screaming, This is why they cost so much!!, and locks the door behind her. The woman ducks and covers. Cradles the egg, Are you my…

Paper’s sudden swipe stings and draws blood. When Thumb’s able to pull himself out of his own mouth, he pushes Paper off his bar stool, leaving a red print on Paper’s pristine white 80-pound cardstock belly. Words whoosh about the room: been buddies for years, flirted with his girlfriend, owes money, poison pen letter. The bartender rushes over, folds Paper back onto his seat. A mistake, he says, as he guides Thumb back to the…

Taking shelter from the rain, my mother and I dip into the bookstore where I’m seduced by the titles in the architecture section and she succumbs to poetry. I study her: blue rain slicker, gray hair knotted at the nape of her neck, worry wrinkling the rigid corners of her mouth. Across warm pools of lamplight she considers the books: each cover an island, a decamping. We could use an escape. My grandmother wants to…

The crow landed on my balcony, black eyes gleaming like wet obsidian. You owe, it croaked. I paid already, I whispered. Interest accumulates. I offered bread. It laughed, a dry clicking sound. A tongue slithered between feathers. Shadows twitched at the edges of my vision. My reflection in the glass smiled without me. No one walks away from blood bargains, it said. Flesh always pays its price. It hopped forward, pecked my hand. The skin…

I was sitting on a coffee shop patio, talking to a guy about the fact I’d increased my dog-walking business by teaching the dogs to fly, when I was interrupted by someone who told me nonsense about the Russian Revolution, but I ignored him and told the man how I’d taught the dogs to fly, when someone else began blithering about the hometown hockey team, which didn’t interest me except on a sociological level, and…

Each night, your father takes his shoulder muscles out of his body. Lays them end to end on the kitchen counter, pink and red striped bands stacked like strips of bacon. Picture pork loins wrapped in plastic, blood drained so you'd never know it once was a pig frolicking in mud, in its own lovely shit. During the day, at the plumbing supply store, he loads toilets and soaking tubs onto trucks. Goes to the…

We fill up our super soakers with tuna oil and water, the canned fish smell rubbing into our brown and gold skin, marking us. We talked ourselves out of using chili pepper water, one of us understanding what pepper spray could do. We pile into the back of our friends' salt-rusted trucks, casually sit, our free hands hanging over the lip of the bed, an invisible cigarette we can’t afford, dangling from our fingertips. We…

After that, a grumble of ground and sky, and a scumble of clouds spreads a dull cast across our land. We cross checkpoints, move again, our elders lowing like cattle on the way to slaughter till, later, or sooner, we lower them into alien earth. In our new homes, we dim lights and expectations. Mornings are the harshest, the loudspeakers so shrill, their calls for drudgery and praise. We sleep in or lay low, swaddle…

A rainbow-knit cap covers her patchy scalp, but she can still turn men to stone.  She adopts two puppies from the shelter and buys green bananas. Defiance is a glamour she wields like the venom of that flat rattlesnake—caught in the hay baler—that she named Heirloom and promised to will to her favorite child. She dozes in the front yard, half-dreaming the traffic. Sometimes she’ll clock a driver, pull off her cap, cross her eyes,…

I climbed the stairs to the roof of the student union. The campus seemed smaller, new buildings having sprouted up where we once had more open space. Before I could give it further thought, a large crow descended and landed on a handrail. Haven't I seen you before? the bird asked. Probably not, I replied. It's been a while since I studied here. The bird nodded, staying just out of reach in case I moved…

All through my childhood and well into my adulthood we burned trash in a barrel. A burning barrel. You could see burning barrels in the back gardens of houses and in alleyways which were often too narrow for any kind of flame. We didn’t just burn paper. We burned what would burn. The sparks would fly high depending on what was thrown into the fire. Our barrel was well worn and had around the rim…

A woman seated at the front of our half-full train car started reading the billboards along the tracks in a loud voice as we rolled out of High Cross Station. Her voice was clear, and her laugh could have been terrifying except she used it as punctuation in an elegant way. She said Yes, she’d think about buying her next car at Ray’s Lot on Rt, 21. No credit! No problem! She shared her hope…

So blows a thin man through a megaphone: Because what morality cannot prevent, government must. Because the Blues is the call of the Devil. A wall to deaden the shout of the trumpet, the sympathy of the piano. To imprison slow dancing and strong drink, red lips and gold shimmer. Pearl necklaces—graciously given as birthday gifts, now knotted and twirled—must be punished. Your wives and daughters have fled. You have no Sunday roast. No corn-silk debutante to…

You will be in line with a grocery cart half-filled with food that your empty wallet can’t pay for when he appears, masked, clad in head-to-toe black, hurdling each check out counter, pointing a black gun at every cashier. You will feel no fear because after all, what can he take except for your EBT card? Some of the customers will resist and he will smack them with the butt of his gun but still…

He uses a large pallet knife to scoop and smear layer upon layer of paint, then angles it and blends until a prairie rolls out along the canvas. Sky—blue swirled with wisps of white, above windblown tall grass—swaths of green and pale yellows. He chooses a smaller knife and uses its tip to poke in delicate flower blossoms—sweet pinks and mauves speckle the field. Until he steps back he doesn’t see her hidden there at…

Phoebe folds into herself, clutching her daughter’s pillow, inhales wisps of Sherrie’s gardenia scent that lingers there. She clutches a photo of Sherrie sitting cross-kneed on the hood of her boyfriend’s Camaro, his arm cinched tight around her middle. Like Bonnie and Clyde, huh? Vince had joked. Now, Phoebe struggles to push back gutting images of her daughter that endlessly loop, along with the questions throbbing in her head. Vince raps on Sherrie’s bedroom door,…

In the discount store window is a fresh-looking pair of black trousers. A sign below them reads, Pants, with smoking pockets. From the sidewalk, two pockets can be seen. No smoke issues from any part of the pants. The price pinned to one leg is six dollars. No doubt, the trousers are used, worn in an office setting, slick in the behind, a hole imagining itself soon for the inseam. I go in and try the prescient pants…

Today I saw an exhibit about the seven deadly sins in the basement of the art museum downtown. Lust, the wall said, is often evoked by the image of a goat. I watched a seventeenth-century lady stroke one’s head and snickered cuz it thrilled me to think of her wanting that bad. I mean, her eyes sagged diagonally, that’s how bad she’d got! Me, I want Xanax. I want a bigger tax refund. I stood…

He's hunting for a new version of hell. Can't you be satisfied with the one you've got? says his wife. The brain needs novelty, he replies. I need something different. Everyone’s got a pointy-headed brother, a cactus that won't bloom, a seven-year itch that makes you sweat. She says, Tell me about it, twisting her ring and watching the cumulous-riddled blue move over their car. How much sky can clouds occupy anyway? How many circles…

I’m getting’ too porky for vines, Jack grumbles as he massages his sore, climb-cramped calves. His fleshy fingers riffle the story book, and he finds himself in the thick of a forest. Creak of trees, belch of toads. Birds dead from moldy bread crumbs line the path he trudges down. Flicks of lizard tails and tongues point the way. At road’s end, a gingerbread cottage festooned with pinwheels and sweets. Barbecue-scented smoke wafts around him.…

Psychic number seventeen says, Stop crowing about it and do something. You pluck and flutter while your mother sits on a stool with a pincushion readying you for prom. Your parents match you with Preacher’s son, Leonard. At the dance he drinks spiked punch and vomits on your silky dress. You place seventh for Prom Queen. The winner dances with Leonard. You call the Hotline, and psychic number four says, Virgo? You received the Aquarius…