The crayons are hard to write with. They catch and drag on the walls. I want the red crayon, red, but it keeps breaking and my hand hurts...

Missing Every night I look at your bed, wrinkled sheets still caught in mid-ripple. The breeze from the cracked-open window billows the...

Before I dated Tina, I assumed everyone hated their family. Isn’t that the reason there’re all those holiday movies? Those...

Because I'm a budding flower, Monsignor tells me. Because I'm ripe with pollen, a flower near bloom, I entice bees. He’s the bee, you...

When I complain about peri-menopause—weight gain, hot flashes, dark spots on my face—the doctor insists on a pregnancy test, and I laugh...

Because we don’t know how to lose Because we don’t know how to lose we lie in bedrooms feet splayed against ice cream tinted walls, pink...

When You Book Us a Tarot Reading After Your Death... I show up, you are still my sister after all. You say I’m late, but it’s easy for...

Under a dayglow sun, you crawl along Witham Way, windows down, glad of the roadworks that slow the traffic as you imagine the Capri...

Making music He hated losing her. Like his clarinet, she’d felt good in his hands. But when he learned she’d hid his invitation to...

Smile uneasily while being dismayed that they’re all middle-aged Remember, with profound disappointment, that you’re nearly thirty-nine...

“It’s perfect!” Johnny Hurley and Robbie Decker stood in front of a small, rundown house that was surrounded by overgrown weeds and...

Are you going to ignore my advice? Then, do so at your peril. As a matron, I will dispense some anyway. You might have already known the...

Shades of blue and purple light reflected off the disco ball, and a raindrop pattern splattered across Linda’s face, drenching her in...

Suppose Gertrude, instead of saying yes, answers no. Oh, she thinks it through, in a long silence that go-between Polonius fills with...

We drove out to the ocean on a Sunday. A bright, breezy afternoon tainted only with the knowledge that we had to work the next day. We...

When Jake’s home randy from trucking and candy, Flo’s amphibious—a moist, round thing. She sticks her skinny limbs out rigid—her rigor...

Nothing quenches the fire in my blood: the way your body moves fans the embers of desire, and your whispered sweetnesses are an...

He built a community book box located at the bottom of the drive. “Take One, Leave One,” said the sign. So, they exchanged books over the...

I don’t like the way my wife eats toast. I tell her this because it’s important. I say no rush, babe! Slow down the frantic crunching!...

Birds on a Bus The guy behind me squawks at his seat mate. "I used to live just over there until my wife tried to knife me and I got put...