Walt Whitman, Woodrow Wilson, Molly Pitcher, Vince Lombardi. These are the important people of New Jersey, she thinks, the people whose names adorn the service areas that dot the turnpike like prayer beads. They are not former presidents, she knows, because one of them is a woman, but they have done something great, something to…

I. Femke knows it’s not sex. They’re still enjoying each other’s bodies, and he never smells of anything but himself. She trusts her nose, her hunter’s sense. It’s not sex. “What’s wrong?” The question, posed in a casual tone, comes from her daughter, Luna, not from him. Eight years old and already observing her mother…

The thing is, and despite the story her dad still tells, Cathy and I saw it all. The way the buck stopped in the middle of the road as if for some reason it just couldn’t or wouldn’t go on. The way her dad’s pickup came hurtling around the bend, snow and mud and ice…

I. Eddie watched from his place in the shade, slumped against the mailbox, while his brother Luke twisted the rabbit’s foot with pliers. “Yank on it,” said one of the other boys crouched at the curb. Eddie pretended not to care, like he usually did when trailing Luke and his friends around the streets. But…

1. Thirteen, first time away from home, the 3×7 box of the lower bunk at Camp Piney Mount. My ribcage constricted with homesickness, breathing a conscious effort. A curtain of black hair fell over the side of my roof/your floor, followed by your all-seeing eyes. I crossed my arms against my sprouting breasts and pressed…

He says he wants to build a raccoon trebuchet, and I ask what exactly that would look like. I’m imagining bungee cords and repurposed bicycle wheels. A snapping sound. It’s the perfect solution to your problem, he says, and I bet they have plenty of tasty garbage. He traces an arc in the air with…

China Taste I DM John Cheever on Twitter when I see that his most recent tweet says, looking for a good time. In my message, I say, aren’t we all? And he says, We must look for light where we can find it. Classic John Cheever. We end up talking and talking turns into going…

“It seems that Zeus was preparing a wedding banquet for Peleus and Thetis and did not want to invite Eris because of her reputation as a troublemaker.” — Principia Discordia + Before Eris plucks the apple up and bowls it down the hall of emerald and ruby, saffron and butter, where the joyful bacchanal is…

Daydreams Her favorite thing is to read about the antics of the little prince who lives halfway around the globe. Yesterday — or would it be two days ago in his time zone? — he rode in a baroque open air carriage that looked like it belonged in a museum. When he stuck out his…

The sheep gather in the middle of the field. Their whisper rises: Furze. Whin. Gorse. The green is at its greenest this month; the dandelion clocks wait to sound the hour; daisies and buttercups jostle for notice. Furze. Whin. Gorse, the sheep bleat, while the plant they esteem glows like sunshine. A vixen, teats pimpling…

I didn’t go to the funeral. My grief was too obtuse, too childish to be experienced communally. Instead I put on a black concert tee and watched infomercials like we sometimes did. It took the television twenty-eight minutes to sell us any old thing. Not that either of us had any money. Magic brooms, toilet…

Every Friday afternoon at 12:15 p.m., Chanda retrieves the Yale key from under the reclining green-hatted gnome, lets herself in the window-paneled pine wood door, strips on the way upstairs (unlike at her place, there’s no significant other or sticky five-year-old to necessitate picking her clothes up) and gets into the Egyptian-cotton sheeted, king-sized bed…