Litany

While I still remember, the color of the snow before me while behind me on the high ridge, fire sings through the dry timber at dawn, driving us down to the river.

Temple’s Mentor

Between the weeklong mentoring retreat and the four-day money migration futurecasting conference, Temple had only one day left for work, and perhaps because of that pending workload,

Social Security

If I look you in the eye, it’s for what I need to know. You’ll learn nothing. All you need to know is this uniform and the benevolent authority it represents. The more you fidget and try to persuade me, the solider I stand in these black shoes.

Need to Know

We started with an exchange of thumbs-ups, not because they fully conveyed our feelings but because we were plummeting toward earth rather quickly and needed a shorthand gesture for Yes, we will live; isn’t it exciting?

Change of Trains

It so happens I’m sick of being a man if this is what it means. I won’t be home today or at the office either. I’ve been summoned and nothing else matters. Permit me to narrate.

Bobcat in a Box

Life may be short but forgetting takes forever, especially when they leave something behind. It’ll be four years now since Bob walked out with nowhere in particular to go, just trying to make distance from me.

Love Bites

Boy meets girl, girl bites boy, boy sees doctor. This is fact. We can verify this. Boy is intrigued but girl moves away before satisfying his curiosity. With its motives and suggestions, this is narrative.

Tan Machines

They dance at parties now who only ten years ago moved like tan machines or seated at desks impersonated receptionists or standing stiffly with legs spread functioned as security guards.

Watchers

They come to Miami, he told me, because flights are cheap and the locals mind their own business. Same here, I told them, plus the women are drop-dead knockouts! I raised my glass and reached it past him in his wife’s direction; we all clinked glasses and I ordered a round. Where I come from, that’s a contract.

Ad Hominem

Until my hitchhiker showed me her gun, I’d been speculating whether crazy and neglect could render a woman nearly unrecognizable since I’d last seen her. She’d chosen a shockingly dangerous place to flag down cars,