Defuncted

2016. Notes. January 23, 2016. 10:47 PM. … When I write this note, I have spent twenty-seven years thinking of myself as a closed circuit…

He parks his shiny red Jeep Cherokee behind the wife’s Subaru, blocking my old rust-bucket Dodge pickup where it’s parked on the lawn …

Two Poems: Dignity and Sea of Beds

Three Poems: The Rejection Slip, The Best Part, and For All Eternity

Years ago, when I was still relatively new to Los Angeles, and newer still to the film business, I was walking to lunch one day …

Three Poems: “waves lap the shore of the Hudson River,” “primetime Jesus,” and “innocent sun.”

“You play the Cello, don’t you?” Sandra whirled around to see who was making the inquiry of her. She found herself looking at a short man …

I ejected from the womb and State with toy rockets in my fists / and did what needed to be done. / And years later, Mother issued a gun …

Usually when I asked him what he had for dinner last night, Walter would gleefully answer, “Pepper steak, Wilson! Pepper steak!” He’d…

I am standing in front of the microwave with its door open, ready to insert the bag of popcorn that I’ll have for dinner…

When we put him to sleep, will it hurt?

I had a baby. Mary came out me, and we’re together always, riding the bus, eating, walking side-by-side, bussing tables at the Nite ’N’…

“Baby, mind doing me a favor?” asked the prettiest of the Soul Train dancers as she approached in a skimpy bikini. “What do you need?” …

Three Poems: The Adventure, The Transformation, and A Pig’s Pig.

Three Poems: The Eyes of Cows, The Raven’s Born, An Italian Learning French in England

When she stays with her grandparents she has to stand at the kitchen sink to have her hair washed…

My sister was paying for lunch at her prestigious law firm cafeteria, and I broke the news to her that I was moving in with my boyfriend …

Mark had a good life. He had a good job: he taught strings and theory in the music department at the same university he’d attended …

Two Poems: First Touch and Metamorphosis

Three poems: Or a tom waits love song, Meager, and Sinister Moth.

Three pieces: The Reiki, Those Who Come from Circumstance, and Mouth

There’s only one street and it has no name. Unpaved, the street is light brown dirt that hardens and cracks when the sun bakes it …

Once confined to veterans’ hospitals and institutions for the criminally insane, physician assisted suicide (“PAS”) has entered…