Charles Atkinson

If she asks you, face averted, to sweep up a fieldmouse carcass by the back steps, you can just take the kitchen broom and dustpan and roll the thing in with a stroke, chatting as you pry off the garbage can lid; but then the chance may not c [...]

I've bent over them in the dark, straddling model train tracks— bright slivers of moonlight—and Bear, abandoned on his back, glassy-eyed. They don't know I come in to mend the broken track and return Bear to the pillow and to ask their for [...]