I had runoff all over. I hadn’t escaped the heartland.

“But what if it isn’t broken? What if this is the way it’s supposed to be? Like, a new challenge that keeps things interesting. Something unexplainable that helps.”

MY FATHER PLAYS SONGS TO THE MOON, MY SON PLAYS SONGS TO THE MOON

An absence surrounds the cabin; an absence haunts it.

My father sits inside, playing sad songs to the evening on his own

Those birds swept down with great urgency, talons punching the water, tearing into fish flesh, sometimes with a force that cut the salmon in two.

Win wasn't homeless, which set him apart from the others. But he'd hit rock-bottom, jobless and sharing enough to be one among them. In the fifty-station clinic, they were strapped to centrifuge

I want to spank Diane Sawyer
In fact, I'd pay upwards of
fifty dollars for it, at least
if she was wearing white cotton
panties

In my fantasy
I wonder
I stop and ask,
"Is

Ars Poetica

I want to say this
simply: I was out
near the river; the trees
were bare, and would be.
I saw no blacksnake
in the undergrowth,
but that doesn’t mean
it wasn’t there,

On the last day of her life, my grandmother woke up, went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, and looked into the mirror to discover that she was bald. Oh! she said. That's a fright. This

I am a fifty foot and two inch panda monster. It’s time for my sacrifice. If it’s not there, then it’s time to rampage through the village. I live out in the woods, a deep ancient forest, trees

Outside on his porch was an indoor sofa. But he kept the lawn mowed. Early in the morning when the grass was still too wet — there he was, limping behind the mower, cursing God and us when it

The winter I turned twenty-seven, I followed a woman who said she might love me to a small town in Northwest Pennsylvania, a go-between place that provided me with little comfort, except maybe to

The guy at table six wiggled his fingers. “Mind if I asked a personal question?”

“Go ahead,” said Miranda, reaching for the check. He was going to anyway.

Table Six grinned. His sunburned

Dave wondered what had happened to the TV.
 

He had faraway memories of nature programs, black and white comedians with European accents and harshly lit news programs with stories as stark as