When Johnny was ten he stole his father’s screwdrivers and hammered them into trees so he could climb them. He took the powder out of his dad’s bullets for the bombs he made to strap onto chickens. He got his… Continue Reading
Let nothing upset you; let nothing frighten you. Everything is changing; God alone is changeless… — Teresa of Avila She was Thérèse for the French one but the words of the Spanish one saved her. Calm practicality; unarguable truth. Ecstasy… Continue Reading
When Benny first spied the new bicycle in the kitchen, the surprise so blindsided him, even on his birthday, that he thought it was a cruel joke. He’d grown to expect his dreams to stay out of reach, yet there… Continue Reading
Spencer looked out the darkened window of the oven. He could vaguely make out the kitchen and the dimly lit entryway to the dining room. The oven walls were cold, which surprised him. A draft blew in through the back.… Continue Reading
I still walk. Breathe. Eat. I am a corpse in clothes. Want nothing. Numb. Since my husband died, I just don’t want to be here. Here. Anywhere. I poke my emotional ash-heap of a self with sharpened sticks to confirm… Continue Reading
Moose’s snoring is quieter than a mass shooting in a shopping mall, but not by much. Tiny shakes him. “For goodness sake, I can’t sleep.” Moose rolls towards Tiny, kisses him on the shoulder and slides a hand down his… Continue Reading
Pour the whiskey and pour it carefully. Two fingers are fine but three fingers will hurt. Do not add ice. Remember that you are in Sandy, Utah, a suburb so like its name. It is beastly hot and the ice… Continue Reading
The ringing of the church’s campana let them know that the ceremony was about to start. She held her Mami’s hand as tight as she could. She never wanted to do her first communion in the first place. Papi made… Continue Reading
The loud man says, “You know how to tell he’s lying — when his lips are moving,” like it’s news. Across the room the man with the butterfly bandage taped across the bridge of his nose thinks he’s the one… Continue Reading
for Buddy She’d always hated his piles. She was thirty-four now, standing in the center of the sun-sopped living room of their split-level home, and they’d been married at thirty, and had begun dating, casually, three years before that, when… Continue Reading