Fiction

These are the first words I’ve written since J. fell down the stairs, unless you count lists. I have lists in my pockets, lists tacked to the bulletin board above my desk. Small lists on Post-its ruffle like feathers against walls and bureaus. Chunky baby food, milk, Cheerios. Diaper Genie refills. Huggies overnight diapers. This…

I have a recurring dream in which I open the front door to my father’s house, and he has a slanted block of wood, the doorstop, in his hand. He thinks I’m trying to break in. Without his glasses, in the unlit hallway, he thinks I’m a burglar. He’s going to stop me with a…

From Book of the Cranberry Islands, Chapter 14, The Burial of The Jellyfish; Return of Champlain to the Outer Waters, Section 1 The moon cracks the glass, rising in pure altimeter like a ghost. A ghost rises, its phosphor is the moon. In the center of myself: a stream, travelling neither toward nor away from…

Everything happens to everyone before it's all over, Harry says to Mary. Everything. . .To some people it happens early in life. To others late. But it all happens. He is smoking on his back in bed. I would marry you, Mary, if I could. But I can't. I know, she says. It's the end….

Just north of Truth or Consequences, he heard the unmistakable bang of metal punching through metal deep inside the engine. Lights came on all over the dash and then they were coasting along dead with Landis pumping at the brake pedal, which had lost its power-assist, and aiming them over onto the shoulder. “What did…

The wind blew with such direct force that the porch swing rode up sideways and wrenched back, overshooting its normal setting several times a minute, and my great-aunt Stacy was worried. She waited for a pause and then rushed to unhook it. The swing fell, and the chain smacked her ankle in its horrible funny-bone…

Today: This man is serious. He has put a map of the Mall in my hands and is now insisting that after meeting with the media at the Washington Monument, the parade/demonstration must be routed to the White House for a final statement. “You’re crazy,” I shout above the other voices, a strategy I learned…

Rain slipped unharmed across the last finger of the Florida fire. She waited a moment, face flushed with heat, sweat streaking across her charcoal face, eye whites bright with adrenaline as she made sure that Wylie and I had escaped the tinderbox pine forest. Wylie’s thick braid hung heavy halfway down his back. He faced…

In late afternoon I sit on the porch, which is mostly rotted to the ground. The screen door’s got cardboard laid in and the rock chimney leaks mortar like a pastry filling. The roof is more sky than shingle. At sixteen years old I wanted to be far away, and by seventeen I was long…