A student asks the old poet why he has spent so many years writing. The old poet says no one’s asked him that before. He needs a minute to answer.

Never speak ill of the dead, his father always said, and his father was a pastor who preached from the pulpit. That’s why whenever

Middle of the night someone’s in the house. Can’t be the wife asleep next to you. She’ll be mad

“Tell Pablo I cannot see!” says the man in the Picasso painti… as I pass by, program in hand. The man has a hairy nose where each of his ears should be.

Spring will eventually arrive, Tom tells his youngest daughter looking out the window at the snow… Take heart, he tells her, and listen for the blue jays when

What if after Browne has gone one of us discovers who Browne was… leads the rally to his room before the maid has time to broom the web… retrieve from underneath the bed

What if your parents had never met had never married had never yelled at each other

Harley turned 70 the other day and died riding his motorcycle through a pink dawn,

In two more hours I’ll have to sh… shave and coffee-prop my lids and otherwise prepare for day. It’… and now the barkeep, Griggs, is rushing me, the first

In 1962 my father toiled in Quinc… two weeks, no more, and saw no blacks except for two young ladies who moved like swans

Linda’s on TV this morning being interviewed by someone who specializes in interviewing unusual people. Linda’s a smart woman but

When a man’s young, this work is hard but it pays well and he can feed the wife and kids.

Solid middle class he is always has been always will be until tomorrow on the highway

Dubville used to be a quiet town, not that much was going on. The young would move to the city after high school… The elderly would stay because