I remember snapshots from earlier years, the age of eleven particularly, some images important, some alien, as if another person’s life superimposed over mine.

I remember turning twenty-one, drunk and drowning in the lusts of youth, empty and lonely as hell.…

My mother leered like a bas-relief Gorgon; why then did L'amea gasp, stumble, fall?

The others, weakened themselves, struggled to bring her back to her feet; I fell against rock, half-leeched to a state of indifference, much like a junkie holding up buildings downtown, sliding past hope of surcease...

Danee snarled and slapped me, once, twice, three times; L'amea, recovered, spoke to me softly of deviled despair.

I blinked awake, wept at the thought of life's…

I remember the first time we locked eyes on each other, both completely intoxicated, but sober enough to know.

I remember the first time we made out in the back of a cab a week later.

I remember you saying, "What happens in China stays in China, right?"

I remember watching you collect your baggage and turn to kiss the girlfriend you conveniently forgot to mention.

I remember with vindictive pleasure how you broke up…

I started to write about a childhood memory that involved large Russian uncles in heavy overcoats and plump Romanian aunties bent over stoves as they baked bread and Purim pastries, but who can stand to write such stories in 104-degree heat?

I tried to write about my first orgasm and other nervous truths, but those prickly feelings melted and ran…

I remember running from Havelock High School to Cherry Point Naval Hospital.

I remember gasping for air as I asked the nurse where the NICU was - I got lost anyway.

I remember pacing the floor with my father as we waited for the chance to see you.

I remember thinking you looked like a newborn Capuchin monkey.

I remember holding you in my arms and becoming your slave for life.

I remember November 26, 1996 as the day my whole world changed.

I remember squatting beside the white picket fence in my front yard, skinny sprigs of grass tickling my bare legs, accepting in warm release the fact that I would never make it to the front door, through the living and dining rooms, through the narrow kitchen and hallway to the yellow bathroom.

I remember the peeling yellow paint, picking out shapes when I was bored, my favorite image the cheerful Peanuts bird, Woodstock.

I remember the…

I brush the perspiration from my chin, the excess trickles down my neck and pools between my breasts.

A summer orchestra of cicadas, heat pumps and ice-cream trucks lulls me into a stupor.

The neon Georgia sun threatens to fry my retinas so I slip on my Ray Bans.

Sunbathers jockey around the pool making deposits on their dermatologists’ mortgages.

The aquamarine water promises cool caresses beneath the soft undulating surface.

I resist the temptation,…

1. I remember wanting to push my brother back into my mother’s uterus when he was born.



2. I remember wanting to be friends with the most popular girl in junior high school but being told I was not cute enough.



3. I remember my first kiss; unfortunately it was an old man—a receptionist in my doctor’s office who asked for a hug and then stuck his tongue in my mouth.



4. I remember vomiting on my first date.



5. I remember getting a job teaching after college…

I've always sympathized with Katie Holmes; she was a "mini" in Hollywood and here came this mega-movie star who swept her off her feet and into the weird of Scientology and male domination. 

She was high on his fumes and out of her mind, long enough to sleepwalk into pregnancy, but that silent birth bit must have been a scary peek into her future; I remember it well. 

Things were probably never the same after the baby, but she hoped she was wrong, hoped Tom…

One

I remember all the long years of addiction, from the time I was three.

I remember my mother's feelings of guilt and her fear.

I remember telling my father I'd kill him.

I remember walking those dead downtown streets.

I remember telling myself that I wasn't an addict, that I was too slick and smart for the NA bamboozle--until May 14th, when I woke up next door to wanting to go buy a gun and have done with what passed for my…

There has been one of these in every home I’ve ever lived in; a drawer of denial.  Their handles are broken and their bases droop, allowing their contents to tumble into the cupboard below.  They are stuffed full of dried out pens, old batteries, keyless padlocks, elastic bands, toothpicks that will never enter mouths, and crumbs.  Crumbs that have mysteriously made their own way across the kitchen in a pilgrimage to the crumb graveyard.  I vow to clear out this drawer one day, but for now…

And now we came to the mountains, which thrust abruptly like something shoved out of the earth, sheer-walled escarpment rising three miles, claiming its right to existence itself.

Back on stone ground planet Earth bloated and burned...

A pall settled on us as sickness will in a plague year; we'd breathed the destruction of every last semblance of life on that plain, and death inhaled becomes one, bleeds through to the very least recess and, ensconced, issues calls for…

I remember a much simpler time in life.

I remember when playing in the dirt, riding my bicycle, and building forts with my brother was my everyday agenda.

I remember living out in the country; a place in which my mawmaw used to say, “They gotta pump in the sunshine for us.”

I remember the days of having a party line telephone; now 9 year old kids are owners of…

Tap--mmmmmmmmm.

Percussive impact trailing sustain like the afterimage of a meteor across black skies, texture and melody unfolding like steel petals, soft pedals, bleeding quicksilver.

He was born in Australia but his people were Iraqi Jews.  

He played drums before he started fusing guitar and electronics into one of the most distinctive signatures of any living artist.

Collaborations take place in sedate museums and dingy Israeli…

The idea of a winding sheet has always brought unfortunately humorous images to mind – something like a bandaged thumb, wrapped over and over in narrow white sheeting –  except that for it to work, visually, with a thumb said sheet would have to be not much more than a quarter of an inch wide, so that sufficient herringbone overlaps could be made.   Clearly impractical.…

I remember, having woken in the night and gone downstairs to interrupt an evening meal, the hardness of my mother’s face as she said, in front of my grandparents, my aunt and my father ‘Why should I cuddle you?   You said you didn’t love me anymore.’*

I remember the surprised delight, …

I remember when my brother and I were so close people thought we were twins.

I remember when he was my hero.

I remember how honored I was when he named his daughter after me.

I remember crying together when our mother was diagnosed with cancer.

I remember how he…

My uncle Al, diagnosed with diabetes, coming to our house for Thanksgiving dinner with his new prosthesis, and giving me the frosting off his cake because he wasn't supposed to have it.

my first bicycle,  only bicycle, actually, which I got when I was ten and rode until I was fifteen.

working at a local resort the year I left college,  for 50 cents an hour (plus tips,  yeah right),  and being dragooned into extra duty with the other waitresses as window…

It’s hard to tell what you are thinking even when it’s you that’s thinking it. The fan feels nice and cool this hangnail hurts how will I ever get the wrinkles out of that shirt will I ever get that check in the mail does true love exist or is most of the world delusional is that me that smells or that guy across the aisle why would the moon ever even want to go around the earth goddamn buzzing flies did I just miss my bus stop? Does it all ever coalesce? Will it all ever mean…

I'm heading for the dressing room when I'm intercepted by Trudy; she has blonde hair, which I usually don’t like, but it's dark enough that I think I can make an exception, and she's wearing a slim fitting cream colored dress that reminds me of the chenille bedspread my grandmother had when I was a child, although this dress is somehow also like lace, and I can't help wondering how it feels.

Soon she's assisting me with my shopping and fetching all sorts of things for me to try on,…