He sits across from me, crossing and uncrossing his legs. When did you last smoke? I asked, casually. Last night, he replied. He did not…

When my brother and I were young, my brother got his mouth washed out with soap for lying. I don’t remember the lies he told,…

Word is, up in Lassen County the rains still come. More than ever. It would be a stretch for the both of you to get…

Joshua rolled out of bed and ran to the toilet to pee. Back in his room, he stepped out of his pajama bottoms as his…

Getting off the late-night train at Penn Station, I couldn’t believe it. Homeless people were stretched out on every bench. I’d never heard a sound…

Truth. What is it? As my years slip by, I am less able to answer that question, never more so than in recent years with…

They lived in what was really a tenement in Hyde Park Chicago. Her father was in graduate school, and she and her older brother and…

I have the blinds down in my knotty pine room. It faces west. At noon the sun starts to come in and will heat and…

The air between us smells like oatmeal from those pre-sweetened packets we'd share at work. Work is cinnamon raisin and stale coffee, and I'm there,…

What was this strange thing doing in my house. I mean I had never ever seen anything like it in my entire life. It was…

Sparks exist independently, they scatter, disperse from the central hearth, like projectiles, they reach for the stars, their original source, but gravity's pull reminds them…

My wife and myself have been caring for Flora, my mother-in-law who has had progressive dementia, for nearly 8 years. Today is February 2, the…