Claire van Dyke was on her way home from a weekend visit with her aunt, who lived in a nearby town with her two cats behind a window sill full of geraniums. The train, an old local, was unusually cold. Claire was the only passenger.

When my spirit was in heaviness, thou knewest my path; in the way wherein I walked, have they privily laid a snare for me.

I looked also upon my right hand, and saw there was no man that would know me.

Bivalve shell—
two perfect halves
tightly meeting
edge to edge

The dark
harbors quiet trust

Wind croons through high trees
and joins the tides

quiet sky
my heart
same color

I am a temporary life form
Here on the third place out
I try to keep fed and to keep warm.

To look at me, you wouldn’t think I was the kind of guy who wears jewelry, but I happen to own a Northwest Coast Indian bracelet. It just goes to show, you never know.

Karen was crying. As I walked along the rickety balcony that led past her room on the second story of our hotel, little more than a grey-brick family compound around a cluttered courtyard, I could hear her sobbing.

Swimmer
Redhead
Field
Lady

Death dogs are all around us. They bark, they bite and gnash their teeth, they howl in the night for your soul. They lurk in the shadows but they’re there, too, in a day like this, so pure and blue and faultless, it makes your heart ache.