I have seen charlatans and I have seen television ministers, and  I was beginning to get that vibe.

“But you named him Davey and my name is David. You might change it up next time.”

“I know your name,” she said.

He had a little radio, and on the mornings it snowed, he listened over and over to the lists of school closings until he knew them by heart: Kellerville area, Longstead area, Mount Holly area, all the outlying place-names, all the Our Lady of’s. Sometimes there was only a two-hour delay, and he wondered what it must be like, to have the boon of two extra hours like that.

After every funeral, we play car tag. Lift keys from our front hallways, still dressed in black skirts and skinny ties, pair into the... more

We played in our cousin’s backyard. It was always pitcher’s hand out, right field out. If you did dish it right over the barbed wire into... more

Three boys took their positions on the makeshift field. The flagstone wall edging the upper lawn was the outfield fence. One foul line... more

They sent me out here to get the final two outs of the eighth inning, to be the set-up man for The Closer, to set up his rightful dominion The Save, but now instead of setting up The Save I am going to blow The Save before The Closer even gets his shot at The Save.

As the blows against each other’s ribs and the glancing strikes on their now helmetless heads escalated, I moved to get out of the dugout and pull them apart, but their father, Coach Christen, blocked the exit with a Louisville Slugger

He visited the library later that night still in his baseball gear, his eye black dancing with tears.  I'm sorry, I said, but three strikes is three strikes. His batting glove let me know he understood.

The east side of Buffalo’s shuttered windshield wiper plants wilted in rust, and hardscrabble butch lesbians screamed towards first base under a... more

The catcher will rest a hand—bare or double-weighted in leather—on the hunch of your shoulder. 

He blew smoke from a loaned cigarette back into my hair, bar rag still in his back pocket from the shift that ended two hours ago. He didn’t understand why I didn’t want him to come over. “Surrender to the stuff, baby.” 

Listen to your mother.

She of the red lipstick, the garish slash of mouth that looks like you... more

The funeral is over, Eliza is back at work, and she has eaten dinner at home three times now, once alone, even.

The king’s first wife went crazy and no longer obeyed him, so he sent her away.

“Mrs. Bolthuis wants you to help her with something. Ride over there and see what she wants. Homework can wait for once.”

“If you have to say you’re fine, you’re probably not,” the crow replied.

Lenore was at the cusp. I’m cusping, Percy, she rasped. Percy was unsure what to do about it. Press forward? Hang back?

Married twenty years today, Heather and Vic play that game.

They walked along the railroad somewhere in Atlanta on a cold and bitter night, the full moon above them like a yellow coin... more

There is a crawl space in my lover’s house that his wife and children don’t know about. He likes to sing into it when he’s drunk and he’s only drunk when he’s with me.

A city wide boil advisory is still out. Brain eating amoebas were detected in the tap.

Q-tips were her guilty pleasure. She loved the feel of them caressing her inner ear, reaching the itch she could otherwise not scratch.... more

We heard something Anglo, unhinged, too human. We’d been hoping for Shrimp killing Cow or Cow killing Shrimp, but it was you, Bitcha, flailing and teetering about in the night sky.

Toward the end, when heart disease had already taken my father, and my mother was alone—which she found intolerable—her doctors felt she had... more