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  • The Viewer

    And a feature about the only son of the famous “Angel of Death,” the man who experimented at Auschwitz on all those dwarfs and twins. I fold the section once in half and then in half again, as if to narrow focus, but glimpse instead a lizard as it shoots up the steps outside then…

  • Volcano

    What is this writing life? I was living alone in a house once, and had set up a study on the first floor. A portable green Smith-Corona typewriter sat on the table against the wall. I made the mistake of leaving the room. I was upstairs when I felt the first tremor. The floor wagged…

  • See How We Are

    When I first arrived in this city I heard coins falling through the air like rain, light collecting on dusty sleeves, in gum boxes and tins; the addicts walked by a smoking pail humming into their hands. We hiked one afternoon along the river, picnicked in the ruins of a trolley station and played with…

  • Reading Late

    The Heart wants what it wants— or else it does not care— —Emily Dickinson So still. Not a cricket. In this heat the trees around the house hold motionless even at midnight. I trundle the electric fan, little pool of wind, along with me from room to room, and imagine Emily Dickinson carrying a candle…

  • Stay

    Sit, he orders.      She sits But Heaven knows he was only talking      to the dog. Folding down bedclothes, he discovers      his socks she made into them. He's already rewashed dinner dishes      while she was in the shower. Still, in bed she alone teaches him      how to cross his eyes. Holding his penis like a microphone,…

  • In the Garden of the Djinn

    Sarah didn't pause to watch the water-seller scurry from his spot in the shade to the path leading to the ruins and gardens. The shallow copper bowls ringed to the belts crisscrossing his bright red shirt jangled softly and flashed in the sunlight. The water-seller made a show of splashing the ground in front of…

  • The Star Ledger

    Almost time to dress for the sun's total eclipse      so the child pastes one last face in her album of movie stars—Myrna Loy      and Olivia de Havilland—names meant to conjure sultry nights, voluptuous turns across      some dance floor borne on clouds. Jean Harlow. Clipped from the Newark evening paper, whole galaxies      of splendid starlets gaze,…

  • Gulf

    There was a flatiron brick building built to tower over a gasoline station, a billboard against the wall—I don't know, Drink Milk, a white pillar of it filling a glass—a Gulf sign swinging over Princess Street, and at the top of the hill to Garfield Elementary, a bridge over Pennsy railroad tracks, and if a…