I saw you tonight in the liquor store--

the regional you, the you they farm out

across the country, for those of us

not lucky enough to live near the real you,

like shopping mall Santas.

Like a shopping mall Santa,

in came the New England you,

into the liquor store where I stood in line

with my New England beer.

I could imagine she was just doing her job,

as ( Read more... )

Jonesy felt it when the corn stopped growing. Like a pot of coffee it brewed within her over some time, then percolated--steam spiking up from her guts to her brains--then boiled over all hot and black and jittery. She told her pa what she felt, then told her ma, who merely scolded pa for letting Jonesy Girl have coffee. No dice. She had little ( Read more... )

Starting this Friday, I will be attending the WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory at Clemson University, a two-week play development program for up-and-coming playwrights where we are aided in our works' growth by a coterie of professional actors, directors, and dramaturgs. This will be my second jaunt in as many years to the grassy knolls of Clemson ( Read more... )

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He might have been exhausted from less than 90 minutes of sleep and no less than three plane boardings, he might have been tripping on the jet fuel, and he might be sent to hell as the grandaddy of all liars, but when he stepped off the plane and into Memphis, TN, there was fried chicken in the air.

He walked straight into

the dressing room

Stop it, he said

Don't do this

She said,

It's already been done

Can't you see it's already been

Done?

This is a ceremony

The doing has been done

This is for everyone else

Those who saw me before

Can see me now

As I am

Different from how I

Was

He looked at her, in her robe--

( Read more... )

They told me, cuts will have to be made. Fucking-A right cuts would be made--across my wrists, maybe across my throat. Maybe I'll stick a knife in my gut and swirl it around like the Japanese used to. That would show them. They like to preen and make big talk about the human face of these tough economic policies? Let's see how they deal with this ( Read more... )

Henry Garcia spooned with no one. He lay on his side in his comfortable spooning position--right arm straight up underneath the pillow, left arm draped over…nothing. There was no one to drape over, and in Garcia's twin bed, very little room to drape anyway. Nothing but his gut. The beer gut that had developed over the last few months as he ( Read more... )

Sitting up on the bed, she put on her bra. Her back curved down to her ass in the same shape as Miller's violin. Her skin was the violin's color. Her hair, like its strings. Miller ran his index finger down the line of her spine and felt her gooseflesh bump up, but she made no sound. She stood and walked across the floor, into the bathroom. He didn ( Read more... )