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

It’s an old clock hanging on a wall in a small room on the third floor. We go up there

Black flag on the lawn falls in pieces from the sky. Starlings in command. Donal Mahoney

Jack’s a widower. His wife died years ago so every year he takes a plane and helps his mother decorate his childhood home for Christmas.

We have something in common, a fellow I talk to now and then. We’re about the same age and perhaps the only ones in the diner who think our past lives are interesting. So when the two o...

Noon meal at the nursing home and everyone is there chowing down and talking. Before dessert is served there’s an announcement to be made

“Quiet, please,” I tell her, “I want to hear the music.” She is sitting next to me again, this time on a paisley couch, a woman in a lime bikini I met

Elmer’s an old stag now shedding antlers snorting among the trees but sometimes Martha after her shower

Through the nursery glass Carlos Montero peeks at Consuela, his twelfth, in the arms of a nurs… Pink as a peony with brilliant black hair,

A poor man comes to the door after the storm last winter and asks if he can have something to eat if he shovels the walk. You say forget about the snow.

Gramps knows a minister who collects classic Corvettes. He rents another garage whenever he buys another Corvette. He says his estate will sell the c…

We are to each other now many decades later what we were the day we got married, a couple at the kitchen table on

Twin sons in different cities decked out in new suits fly home for the holidays arrive at the airport