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Confusing the Dog

My wife and I, we have this game we play called "Confusing the Dog." My wife, she plays the game, knows all the rules, but she doesn't know I named it. I named it about the time I realized we were hooked-us and the dog. The game goes like this: I go to bed or…

Overdose

It lay like a dark pond behind your eyes rotating on the axis of despair. As someone considers a move to the country you imagined that change of scene. And as your life came to resemble a solitary walk around a deserted lake you dipped your foot into that black water. You took longer walks,…

Applied Art

Of this low stool, the base is a woman naked, stooped, who bears it up with large hands— much larger than her face. For the chief, her hands express service. They gave the carver ten points through which to engineer the stress. Ornamented, they're part of the carver's pleasure in his skill: the fusion of…

In a Father’s Place

Dan had fallen asleep waiting for Nick and this Patty Keith, fallen deep into the lapping rhythm of a muggy Chesapeake evening, and when he heard the slam of car doors the sound came first from a dream. In the hushed amber light of the foyer Dan offered Nick a dazed and disoriented father's hug….

Express

(i) I measure ways out of here. Scan a room, Memorize each exit sign. count the stairs. It's easy to blame the dark, the infinite For what hasn't happened yet. I know all the names Of the highways, the exact wrenchings of elevators, Their clutch: every night I have had to lie a little more…

Dead Baby Speaks

i am taking in      taking in like a lump of a dead baby on the floor      mama kicks me i don't feel anything *     *      * i am taking in      taking in i am reading newspapers i am seeing films i am reading poetry i am listening to psychiatrists, friends someone knows the way someone will…

The Body Politic

Five-five and one-twelve, thirteen years old, out of an obscure elementary school, a complete unknown. Dale Wheeler walked into the boys' locker room to spin the dial of his combination lock. It was Emerson Junior High, a school with a double gym with a floor the color of whiskey upon which street shoes were never…