* It’s winter and the ceiling fan, not in use, has become a big asterisk above my bed, a qualification to my life. I wonder what it’s telling me. Is it a “yes, but,” or is it more of a “by the way”? Does it mean this terrible, lonely year is a mere blip, [...]
Our friendship was just beginning the month you died. We enacted the juvenile plays of high schoolers trying to impress each other. Staying after school in a time before cell phones, we waited on the wide concrete steps until our parents or older siblings came to pick us up. You found a smashed hamburger on [...]

THE CURDLE OF FOAM ALWAYS SUBMITS Worth more with fermentation & lit blue below the shuffling feet, the garden of useless particles creeps the party like a storm without lightning, clinging to the pant cuffs, begging to be taken towards the lawn, towards the blades of parsing. All words are church to the [...]

Removal of the gold wedding band That’s the first step Securing it in a shirt pocket — Button closed. Hold the shell high Then slam it down on a steel pick Peeling away the green halves Cracked along the seam. Then pick out a blond or brunette From the gathered crowd Huddling in pairs [...]
The hardest part about the past, at least for me, is that you’re in so much of it. Remember that one Christmas when we were driving through North Dakota, which is mostly empty, and we passed that burned-out husk of an ice cream truck on the shoulder of the road? You told me [...]

I was a student enrolled in Carlow University’s Low Residency M.F.A. program the day I met Lewis “Buddy” Nordan. He was scheduled to read at one of our events in Pittsburgh. Many of the other students had been excited about the event most of the day. Past students had come to town for the [...]
And she walks slowly across the deep grass. Back to earth she goes. The stems part before her legs and then gather again with a bow after her body. In furrows the soil curves. Under her feet stones patter in excitement, realizing their perfect shape. Organic agitation and a verdant genesis in the making, [...]

One night I ask you what you think will happen if our relationship ends. Am I feeling uneasy about our relationship? About our chances at whatever going the distance means? Maybe. But I ask you what you think will happen if our relationship ends because I’m curious. And because I think you’ve thought [...]
The starter’s pistol punctured the air above the heads of the runners curled over like fetuses. Instantly they sprouted arms and legs. From his seat in the bleachers, Stan found it hard to tell which boy had made the best start. Nor could he pick out from among the eight brightly colored jerseys the [...]
“It’s interesting to think that with copyright law, as suggested in Creative License, being less than conducive to artists who use collage technique today, that Andy Warhol would have had as much success now.”

