Marcel Proust had never been to a big-box store before. He was dazzled by the sheer size and scope of the store and the seeming impassivity of the shoppers. So many products, so many shelves, such strangely intriguing examples of the human condition. The people seemed…

but chopping down a tree isn't. It's all murder. People just like to choose their poison. You can't say stealing land is murder, but stealing somebody's freedom isn't. It all leads to the same thing. Shooting a lovely bird out of the sky is…

You were the prize. He was the sudden wedge.

I wish

["And you can tear a building down ... but you can't replace ... the MEMORIES ... "]

Because I was not sure if the poet had said yearn or urine, I zoomed in on her mouth as she commanded the lectern...

.

"I write out of a deep need within myself for beauty. A beauty that I think can only be found through the practice, through the sacrifice over time that's required."

Which way are the Pointer Sisters pointing

A poem not about fog written in fog with an erasable pen.

Iris is beside herself with excitement that the most popular girl in her eighth-grade class invited her to join her circle of friends after school. On the sound of the bell, she charges to the door to be the first out of the room and to race to meet Ange

Yes keeps falling out of my mouth

.

I wonder if she is my real mother, if I could get one of those paternity tests and find out if she’s my real mother and if the guy she told me was my father was really my father. I can’t remember him very well, just a lot of him screaming and hollering an

At my daughter's wake Mr. Aleford, her teacher, poked out his pointy nose, sniffing my cologne. How could I be plastered with this, at a time like this? Well, dear Sir, Two reasons. One, to hide the booze. And two, because my wife and I had made feverish love that…

I spend my time sitting on the back step—poison oak reddening my arm—under the eaves, waiting to escape.

No American ghosts are friendly. I hate to be the one to break the news to you, amigo. American ghosts speak in blood and smoke signals and guttural cries. American ghosts MEOW.