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The Many Faces of an Urban Commute

When he traveled, he did so without mercy, in a body that was not a body but canvas painted with his handprints.

Alice spots the fat women through the second-story kitchen window. It’s Wednesday, so Dad is out at his feelings meeting. She has just turned eight and has been dragging her drumsticks over different household surfaces to see what sounds...

Denis Johnson and the Literature of Last Things

You and I are members of a culture. Likely we are members of different cultures. Mine—one of mine, anyway—is South by Southwestern folded up into a Jesuitical Irishness tempered with first-generation punk rock. Yours may be Puritan, or...

Picture if you will Tony Hoagland
and me, he in his Donkey Gospel
hat and me wearing my Hustle ring,
in his car patched with silver duct
tape and sagging passenger mirrors
discussing vehicles as metaphors

When a young mother fleeing violence in El Salvador faces long odds for asylum, it raises a crucial question: Who deserves sanctuary in America?

You don’t dress your mouth
in my blouse. My body crinkled

There is, in a nearby field, a retired show horse living out
whatever days it can win, a white horse speckled with brown
flecks. Its limp mane welcomes your hand. On its face,

Variations on a Slippery Idea