They sat on the grassy bank, clothes clinging to their wet bodies, watching the river flow. A few raindrops splashed on the surface, tiny dimples rushed away downstream. Neither of them bothered to point out that it was going to rain.

I stopped drawing stars on my student’s papers. Stars are dying suns shouting out “goodbye!” as they disappear. Why should that signify goodness?

I discovered distant Facebook friends—dead from

I was at a party for the end of the world. I came so I wouldn’t be alone. I guess so did all the other women. They must have known there’d be no men at this party because they wore beautiful

We were listening to the bombing over the radio while my mother drove me to confirmation class that night.  The radio said We as if America was a bunch of siblings who once shared a bed together.

I could take my hands off. Just unlock them at the wrists, snap them off like the heads of artificial flowers. As long as my mouth’s working him, up down up down, he wouldn’t notice if I had no

The man keeps thinking about the power lines—the ones that are strung over his house.

Sometimes at night, he can hear them up there, buzzing.

It's hard to sleep with all the

They never seemed to notice me, not even when I rolled up my uniform skirt, like the other girls did, and walked the stairs in front of them.

I’m in the parking lot, I’ve got Sarah’s prescription, Sarah’s my wife, and I see him.

Osama bin Laden.

“Violent dog,” I said, passing the leash to Karen.

“Just toothy,” Karen said, blotting her knuckle with gauze.  “He’ll live alone.”

We went to the college up north to get away from our families, but we didn’t leave behind our need for something like a domestic bond. 

Aaina’s mom collects shiny things like a magpie. The one time Aaina sneaked me into her house, I walked past rows of gold photo frames, silver handicraft elephants and raindrop chandeliers.

“I saw you by the river last night,” Amy says, her eyes still closed and half-covered by strands of almond-brown hair. “Why didn’t you follow me?” 

They laid out their sweat-stained clothing while the geyser was quiet, placid. They backed away and waited for her to erupt. 

There was no doubt in Bea’s mind that they referred to the geyser as “she.” 

I am glad to report that the Great Iowa State Fair Haiku Contest was a roaring success. 

I smile into the mirror. There is lipstick on my front teeth. I don’t rub it off.

I have trouble sleeping in open spaces, I tell Saul. There is a blanket on the floor of my closet.

She didn’t spend her senior year serving soft serve and saving for a bus ticket to Los Angeles when she turned eighteen to end up riding a tandem bike around the park with some guy whose shorts were too short.

One summer morning, Lyle Condy was cycling down the steep, straight hill of Magdalene Road in the city of Cambridge. His bike had a bell in strict accordance with local ordinances regarding cycling. 

Months ago. Here it is me at the grocery getting flowers and deli meats and here’s the little boy with his face soft and fluffy and pink. 

He was at the window. I heard the tap-tap-tap.

After, we slunk back to Mema’s Alaskan Taco Hut and I crawled into a booth and ordered with two fingers like we were stuck in a Mad Men b-reel. I couldn’t see my hand held up, but from this

“I don’t like how her flesh looks,” my daughter tells me. According to Phoebe, this woman has the flesh of a winter peach.

“We made out once,” my sister says. I thought “I was in love with him for a night.”

My daughter Lisbeth checks Missy’s gums for bleeders. “Sometimes the damage done takes generations to make itself known,” she says, nodding along with her words, agreeing with herself. 

By now Lena was supposed to be the version of herself at whom people looked twice, and whom Alec missed, at home, now that they lived together. But she was still just herself, in stockings and hoodie, her face half-done.