Instead I see embroidery, lace-making or metallurgy, fine filigree of rusting swing set against wood, the vertical birdfeeders foregrounded, but so close my eye misses them at first. I don’t know what to call this world anymore.

We all laugh, hard, and keep reaching for more laughter deep in our heavenly bodies because it distracts us from thinking the same thing: God is slipping.

One night your boyfriend sleepwalks to the kitchen and brings a handful of M&Ms back to bed. You wake to bleary chocolate splotches on the sheets. You’re annoyed because they’re your nicest

Mmm... I want ILB.

After Pete and his daughter Aya finished the course work to become certified masseuses, they entered the hotel meeting room for the final exam, which began with the instructor asking the entire

Spring was flipper-fitting season for young Olympic hopefuls like Jeannie. Although it was only March, Jeannie already had her gill implants; Dr. Rickman, a leading expert in the field of

Peter first met (well, you know. "Met.") Leona when he was five years old. It would be thirty years before he would spend every austral summer counting penguins on a tiny field station in

I want to call you and sing the Prince song, discuss the proportions of his tiny frame, imagine his tongue together, stay on the phone for hours like we used to. Those days are gone. 

My roommate lives her life differently. This is what she claims. 

Antarctica wants you dead.

The research scientists bundle you up in outside-resistant clothing and put you outside the insulated walls of the research station. Your feet sink into the dry white

You are obsolete. The cashier in your neighborhood’s grocery store is obsolete.  The typesetter—who placed each individual letter for the headlines of the morning paper—is obsolete. Tollbooths barely require someone to stand sentry in the middle of the highway to collect coins anymore and soon enough lasers will replace surgeons in operating rooms as well.

She had different stories for different people.

“Lost it in a hunting accident.”

“Shot off in the war.”

“Born without it.”

“Bandsaw.”

“Woodchipper.”

“Gangrene.”

Each

I imagine Temperance Brennan's annual gynecological exam might go something like mine: If you're not finding time to eat, you must not be having a lot of... Are you seeing anyone right now?

* * *

I lie night after night
With the only one I hate more than myself

Artisanal meth is amazing

How we pretended to be other people for fun: “Hi, what’s your name?” she asked. “Bill,” I said. “Bill, huh? I can think of a lot of words that rhyme with Bill.”

And here comes this very small girl – this fairly attractive small girl – getting real thug with me suddenly. Suddenly thug. This petite white girl getting suddenly thug. And she physically pushed me saying “Wrong fucking pile!” She was angry about this pile. 

If one person can take from this that it is not about privilege, it is not fiction versus poet, it is none of the internet fashions of complaint and it is not anonymous (even though I am any-goddamn-pleasing-way anonymous with or without my fucking name) ...

My fault for side-stepping the usual male pretense at sensitivity or smug confidence of manipulation. I’ve saved it all for this fucking Lish frottage of a sentence.

It’s a hot day in Oklahoma, and Kurt Russell has been working hard. At what, we’re not entirely sure. There may have been a throwaway line of dialogue about fixing cars or mending fences or digging

“I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.” 

-- Anton Chekhov

“When I dance, the stage shakes with my weight.

The whitetail flit across the road,
tails raised in greeting or surrender,
a herd—a small stampede—crossing
this rural Iowa highway, emerging
from fields of green, leaping
the cable guard

Shane Jones’s Crystal Eaters begins as a countdown. The chapter numbers start at 40 and irregularly drop to zero by the book’s end. The page numbers recede against conventions too, and the