she’s young, she said, but look at me, I have pretty ankles, and look at my wrists, I have pretty wrists my god,

as the spirit wanes the form

So I took the exam, passed it, took the physical, passed it, and there I was—a substitute mail carrier. It began easy. I was sent to West Avon Station and it was just like Christmas exc...

the girls are coming home in their cars and I sit by the window and watch. there’s a girl in a red dress driving a white car

the boys come up the boys climb up the brown pole as the waterheater gurgles in Spanish

swans die in the Spring too and there it floated dead on a Sunday sideways circling in the current

They had me in the counselor’s office in… “Let me see how you look, Chinaski.” He… “Ow! You look bad. I better take a pill… Sure enough, he opened a bottle and took… “All right, Mr. Chinaski, we’d like to…

16 years old during the depression I’d come home drunk and all my clothing— shorts, shirts, stockings—

the cops want me to come down and identi… some guy who tried to rape me. I’ve lost the key to my car again; I’ve… the key to open the door but not the one to start it.

I began at 6:18 p.m. and Dave Janko did not begin until 10:36 p.m., so it could have been worse. Having a 10:06 thirty minute lunch, I was usually back by the time he got in. In he’d co...

he used to sell papers in front: Get your winners! Get rich on a dime!” and about the 3rd or 4th race you’d see him rolling in on his rotten b… with roller skates underneath.

monkey feet small and blue walking toward you as the back of a building falls off and an airplane chews the white sky,