My husband owns a German bisque doll from the late 1800s. Her name is Clarisa. She has delicate blonde curls that frame her porcelain face and glass blue eyes, both of which my husband polishes every morning with baby wipes gripped in shaking hands. Clarisa came with...
Her head was found perpendicular to the lake. The sight almost eventuated a myocardial infarction, that’s a heart attack to you and me. An elderly man walking his dog or being walked by him made the grim discovery. She had always been the bird refusing to fly in...
All winter, Grandpa seems frailer, like he’s entering a final phase. His living room’s cluttered, he hasn’t shaved, and we wonder if he’s remembering to brush his teeth. When he says goodbye, watching us put on our boots, his blue eyes blur, jelly candies softening...
Mother says her voice is a visitor in the theater of her throat. The play must not be splendid, she says, because many characters—the woman with the crooked hat, the man who looks like he has two bellies, the couple in love stuck together like flower petals in the...
After twenty-five years and an hour of cash bar drinks, the ballroom-sized venue is stuffed with chatter and assessment. From classmate to classmate, you listen to the stories fat with nostalgia or self-regard, all of them rooted in achievement. You nod and smile and...
At the General Store, a cashier said, “No, we don’t sell food,” so we asked if she had candy or soda or anything general stores tend to sell, and she laughed. “I don’t think you know what General means,” and she showed us a green helmet and army boots and badges...
I would like someone to haunt my house and simulate some of my deceased husband’s habits, so I can get some sleep. These include: Walking into the bathroom. Leaving the door open with the bathroom light shining in my face. Urinating loudly. Opening the refrigerator...
Ann and Andy have a small, quiet apartment. They live tucked into a nook in a towering building, which is filled with other people who also live small, quiet lives. Ann and Andy are made of biodegradable material. We should note here that their names are not...
1. You are six, and your brother is four. The sun is so bright compared to the lush New Jersey canopy you are accustomed to. It makes the world appear technicolor and elongated. You go through “It’s a Small World,” and something about the unease of Florida burrows...
there is no romantic connecticut the text says, but I don’t take this as rejection. I don’t blame autocorrect. I read her words again, but can only see Connecticut, cut with all beauty this time of year —clean snow over old hedges and children sliding streets in stiff...
After you left, a goat took up residence in the left ventricle of my heart. I didn’t know about my little stowaway at first. I thought I simply wished to say “no” more often and while screaming. I thought the quality of my enunciation had merely slipped the same way...
Boy, on the night your mother brought you into this noisy, miserable world, at exactly 11:18 pm, on a rainy Thursday, your father reclined in his Toyota car outside the Emergency Unit and sucked on the titties of a nurse, the same nurse with the pointy bra and...