I had been sleeping on a terrible mattress with the springs sticking into me for several years. That afternoon when I awakened I pulled the mattress off the bed, dragged it outside, and...

it was Philly and the bartender sa… what and I said, gimme a draft, J… got to get the nerves straight, I’… going to look for a job. you, he s… a job?

at high noon at a small college near the beach sober the sweat running down my arms a spot of sweat on the table

The voices of the people were the same, no matter where you carried the mail you heard the same things over and over again. “You’re late, aren’t you?” “Where’s the regular carrier?” “He...

I was sitting in my shorts one afternoon a week later. There was a tender little knock on the door. “Just a moment,” I said. I put on a robe and opened the door. “We’re two girls from G...

it’s strange when famous people di… whether they have fought the good… the bad one. it’s strange when famous people di… whether we like them or not

It was another Sunday that we got into the Model-T in search of my Uncle John. “He has no ambition,” said my father. “I don’t see how he can hold his god-damned head up and look people ...

The 5th grade was a little better. The other students seemed less hostile and I was growing larger physically. I still wasn’t chosen for the homeroom teams but I was threatened less. Da...

at the window I watch a man with a power mower the sounds of his doing race like flies and bees

I pick up the skirt, I pick up the sparkling beads in black, this thing that moved once around flesh,

these things that we support most… have nothing to do with up, and we do with them out of boredom or fear or money or cracked intelligence;

after the slaughter house there was a bar around the corner and I sat in there and watched the sun go down through the window,