We hung suet out on the deck today hoping the wrens would come and stay the winter,

Outside, the still of crickets. Inside, petals of a cold sore foliate,

Lightning bolts in childhood can scar the soul forever. They’re a satanic baptism when the minister’s your father, mother, brother, sister,

Old Tim writes poetry now in his heaven of retirement. He’s had nice jobs over the years but swears retirement is better.

The stench came first, the young man remembers. It was as if someone had grabbed him by the ankles, turned him upside down

Inferno of a summer day Mother’s dozing Tommy, tiny, three, paring knife in hand tiptoes out, flops

Being poor on our patch of land was better than being poor all the years I’ve lived in the ci… We had a couple of cows, a rooster and seven hens.

Unable to sleep Bill watches preachers on TV after midnight. The preachers warn the Saved Satan is coming to get them. Bill wonders why preachers do this…

Forty years Leroy was a doorman at a nice hotel in a big city. He was a country boy the day he got the job because he was tall and the uniform fit, the manager s…

She’s been making quilts for half a century and he’s been making poems that long as well and every now and then he brings a chocolate shake to her place

Lamentations loud amid the tears following Orlando. Another call to take guns from people

Oliver Jones, now gray and grizzl… cut the Miller’s lawn for years.… a victim of Agent Orange, Oliver’… almost as old as the Millers, his… Recently he’s left ridges and tuft…

When I was eight I jumped off a roof as if I had a parachute and broke a leg. He was there when I landed,