In Conversation

Last Words Thoreau’s sister Sophia, who was reading to him from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack when he died, claimed his last words were “Now comes good sailing.” William Ellery Channing, a friend of Thoreau’s who was also present, said he heard only two words: “Moose. Indian.” My wife says I yelled “Run!” …

Condolence Book I’m sorry for your loss. I’m deeply sorry for your loss. I’m sorry I lost my manners that night we were drinking in Maine. Your whole family is in my thoughts, especially that little nymphet with the rust and stardust eyes. It was a terrible shock to learn that you ran off with …

The Profane Art of Staying Alive: The Book of the Dirty Poet from Roadside Press Early in The Book of the Dirty Poet, its pseudonymous speaker reduces the secret of life to two pieces of advice: get lucky, and appreciate things while they are good, because they will not remain that way. Then comes the …

A Week After 9/11 and we still needed all the things people who just bought a house need, and on our way to buy them at Walmart, I remembered the chain email forwarded to me at least 5 times, telling me that tonight how we were all going to go outside and hold up a …

Thoughts of a half-dead woman Since I was twenty-nine doctors have been telling me I am nearly dead. There’s a strange freedom in being a half-dead woman. Risks are not measured by what is lost— but whom. Regrets are not what I failed— but what I didn’t say. I remember the name of the man …

The Teeth of the Years The great machinery of life grinds in silence while everyone inside it disappears. Nobody hears the little bones of the years being chewed. We wake up, clock in, stand beneath the white lights of places built to keep us busy, then go home and call it a life. Soon enough, …

The Great Funeral Home Candy Bar Heist 1. “I’m telling you guys, last Halloween me and my cousin trick-or-treated Dombrowski Funereal Home and they were giving away full-sized Snicker bars,” Skiba said. Brian didn’t buy it. He’d come to a point in their friendship where he doubted every word spouted from Skiba’s lips. In the …

Friar Tuck I was wondering if Friar Tuck was an intentional Spoonerism, an invitation to experience the most fun that anyone can have without laughing. Was horizontal dancing being suggested by the name or am I taking deconstruction to academically ridiculous lengths and reading too much into this? Answers on a postcard, please, as they …

Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra Shoot At the Stars No couch could cushion our lives, and I think of Ava and Frank driving into the desert, restless as two honey badgers in spirited flirt. Under that big night sky of back talk spin, Frank grabbed his gun from the glove box and began shooting at …

For the Duration  by Heather Flescher from Collapse Press Heather Flescher’s For the Duration is a collection that refuses distance. It is not content to be admired from afar as an exercise in craft alone; it insists on intimacy. Through a blend of narrative poetry, memoir, prose-poems, and personal reflection, Flescher creates a work that …