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46

I don’t want fiction. What I want is truth. Or someone’s version of it.

A Country Doctor

A gravely ill man was waiting for me in a village ten miles distant.

A Dark and Empty Corner

Human language, Winston thought, was not adequate for spiritual union.

A Dream of Ease

I shoved them one by one, easy as pie yet with care, just shy of mercy.

A Final Conversation

I used bravado to protect myself when we lived in poverty.

A Happy Birthday

I wanted to ride this day down into night, to smooth the unreadable page.

A Place for Us

Our house sits alone out in the country, seven miles north of town.

A Summer in Between

In a way she enjoyed the slow, sad feeling of letting it go.

A. Roolette? A. Roolette?

She remembers that golden ocean, the promise of a whole new land.

A. Roolette? A. Roolette?

She remembers that golden ocean, the promise of a whole new land.

Accompaniment

We are going south where I know that my father is going to die.

Act III

It’s there and then it’s gone, just light through the window.

Adventures of a Would-Be Filmmaker

Since I am in my seventies, it is now or never, and I know it.

All Good Here

Since his mother’s fall, Ali had been stopping by every week to help out.

Amaryllis

Water the boxed dirt, and up she’ll push, rising in red-streaked blossoms.

Amazement

If everyone’s lost on the roads, you might as well fly. Enjoy your life.

An Abstract of My Research

For one hundred years I followed old people to learn what I was in for.

Another Christmas

‘Isn’t this great?’ she said. ‘A bit of peace for ourselves?’ ‘No one could go into a cafe on their own on Christmas Day.’

Another Decade, Another Mouth

she was sixteen, and swimming. she was seventy-one, and soft.

At the Wrong Time, to the Wrong People

I have given everything at the wrong time, to the wrong people.

B.F. and Me

Tobacco and dirty wool, rank alcoholic sweat. I liked him right away.

Bag

I lost my medicine bag from back when I believed in magic.

Beautiful Things

I was all alone in a little room, nothing but that big gun in my face.

Best Advice

I wanted from my father what I had never wanted or sought: his advice.

Betty of Lilyfield

A collection from San Franciscan photographers Eszter and David.

Between Here and Here

My father stood up, unable to choose which one of us to kill first.

Bolton

The bank had stated that emphatically. They had to sell and sell now. It was as if Hank had aged twice as fast, and he couldn’t stand that truth.

Bonsai

My father was neither kind nor strong in his bruising.

Bruegel-Hunters in the Snow and Other Poems

I fell asleep wondering to whom the tree might have been writing.

Burnice

“And if you ever tell anybody what I’m about to tell you, I’ll deny it.”