people went into vacant lots and pulled up greens to cook and the men rolled Bull Durham or smoked Wings (10 a pack) and the dogs were thin and the cats were thin and the cats learned h...

the German hotel was very strange… double doors to the rooms, very th… looked the park and the vasser ter… it was usually too late for breakf… would be everywhere changing sheet…

the motion of the human heart: strangled over Missouri; sheathed in hot wax in Boston; burned like a potato in Norfolk; lost in the Allegheny Mountains;

murdered in the alleys of the land frost-bitten against flagpoles pawned by females educated in the dark for the dark vomiting into plugged toilets

The baby was crawling, discovering the world. Marina slept in bed with us at night. There was Marina, Fay, the cat and myself. The cat slept on the bed too. Look here, I thought, I have...

I’m glad when they arrive and I’m glad when they leave I’m glad when I hear their heels approaching my door and I’m glad when those heels

very tall girl lifts her nose at m… outside a supermarket as if I were a walking garbage can; and I had no desire for her, no more desire

I am driving down Wilton Avenue when this girl of about 15 dressed in tight blue jeans that grip her behind like two hand… steps out in front of my car

Lydia liked parties. And Harry was a party-giver. So we were on our way to Harry Ascot’s. Harry was the editor of Retort, a little magazine. His wife wore long see-through dresses, show...

One day, just like in grammar school, like with David, a boy attached himself to me. He was small and thin and had almost no hair on top of his head. The guys called him Baldy. His real...

in the hospitals I’ve been in you see the crosses on the walls with the thin palm leaves behind t… yellowed and browned it is the signal to accept the ine…

women don’t know how to love, she told me. you know how to love but women just want to leech.

yes, it’s dark in here. can’t open the door. can’t open the jam lid. can’t find a pair of socks that ma… was born in Andernach in 1920 and…