You loved Shakespeare and Sinead O’Connor. We acted out scenes from Macbeth, Buried Child, and Long Day’s Journey Into Night.  You convinced me to dye my hair purple.

From 2016: Remembering Prince.

In those days, the seventh grade boys of Oak Lawn, Illinois, were expected to get at least to second base if not farther, and if they didn’t then they were marked as the biggest pansy-asses in Simmons Middle School.

In the rain, the dogcarries a dead birdfrom one end of the parking lotto the other.

By three o’clock the dirt field in front of the main stage is the world’s largest convection oven. Nobody’s had water in over an hour. Joe says, “Are we dying?”

I don't remember which one of us found the couch, but I do remember we found it on the side of a road near a bar called Spanky's in Lexington, Virginia.

Last year, Barrelhouse got to wondering: What would happen if a literary magazine said, instead of Send Us Your Best Work, Send Us Work You Love?

The office ladies have opinions. They’ve been here longer than you. They’ve worked in this office since you were in university, twenty years ago.

Maybe it’s not so bad to be promiscuous says my mom over Indian food that day we had lunch now that she’s 70 and her body has created phantom pain.

Niggling. Is the feeling, the right word. The sensation is Belladonna Blue. Like a Ford Falcon tilting on a muted roadside, dusky Oleander petals slide across the dash, one she loves me/ two she loves me still.

So then Marcia peels back her collar to show us the two white marks on her neck, like we haven’t seen them every year, these two faded knots in a parallel line glaring out from her store-bought tan and as she strokes them

No, you don’t sound like a pedophile, silly. You’re a man of God playing Yahweh's Greatest Hits, from Genesis to Golgotha. The parents at the park trust you for this reason alone.

unbleached demeters stand in line and I'm beside a demeter loudly sobbing she says: each day this belief must contain / us / a we that's made of previously whole persons the mythology that there are previously / whole people

You go to shake my hand but you don’t because I’ve bled. My nails are dark in random corners but they are not random, these corners, the state of things. I am meticulous. I

The feet,

though they disturb some of the local residents,

are immaculately manicured.

I’m not like the other girls. The other girls know things I don’t know. The other girls know the rules.

One night before the fisherman went to sleep he removed his wedding ring and placed it on the nightstand. The next morning his wife was gone.