In 1920 he came on a boat from Ireland and found his way through Ellis Island. He found a room in a boarding house

Loud preacher bellows on Sunday what a silent praying mantis knows Donal Mahoney

There’s a football field between u… I’m in one of the end zones bellow… and you’re in the other one bawlin… the cliffs of your cheekbones streaked with mascara.

It may have been the devil himself who prompted the kids in my schoolyard back in 1947 to chant “Patsy Foley’s roly-poly from eating too much ravioli.” At first, no one could remember w...

Early evening traffic’s rather heavy. Autos armadillo home along the Outer Drive as out of mouths of buildings

Fred’s not a hunter but Animus is a beast he’d hunt down and kill and mount on his wall if he had a clear shot

In St. Louis young blacks carry guns like cell phones and use them often to shoot each other, as we read in the daily paper

Six months ago an old black couple moved into an old brick house on a block of old white people. A dither erupted over the fences

They’re getting older, five brothers and sisters, all with degrees, jobs, families, nice homes, good lives, happier than most except when they must

They’ll be coming for us, the old lady told the young man next to her, the two of them sitting on stones under the bridge surrounded by trolls

That’s a very big tree and a boy scout could climb it with all the right gear. But it’s a condominium, too. You would disturb families.

I know this story to be true because I know Ruben and he wouldn’t lie even though Ruben and I have never met. He lives in Alabama in a hollow and I live in St. Louis. But that makes no ...

Raul is a kind man who plays marimba in a salsa band at LA clubs late into the night. Some afternoons he plays

There’s nothing wrong with you. We both know this is true but there’s something wrong with m… and you know what that is. It’s the elephant in the room