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The Heart Is Oil

The mirror will flow and the heart will set like glass in the frame of his bones.

The High Place I Go

My husband screws around. Not much and not often, but I know.

The Hookup

This is what he must have felt when she told him about her affair.

The Horse Dealer’s Daughter

So long as there was money, the girl felt established, and brutally proud.

The Hotel Macabre

At straight-up noon, the honeymoon was ruined, one day in.

The Invention of the Darling

With no words to speak about our love, we’re each one more alone.

The keepers

It’s all that I have left of “the old country,” as my mother calls it.

The Kiss

Below, the kiss silently maneuvers our bodies closer to the rose bed.

The Lady with the Little Dog

Gurov reflected, “it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make her acquaintance.”

The Langham Club

We backed up and I kept ripping it at his face, trying to knock his teeth out.

The Last Language

I think you might have turned into a novelist, if we’d been allowed to go on.

The Lesson of the Master

Kids interfere with perfection. Wives interfere. Marriage interferes.

The Little Weaver of Duleek Gate

It was up airly and down late with him, and the loom never standin’ still.

The Loneliness of Fireworks

If I also could be lifted into the sky, I’d wish to be blown apart.

The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday

The sense of power that flights of temper evoke will betray you.

The Lost Sister: An Elegy

She could not have known how uncannily she resembled me.

The Man Without a Shadow

This is not deception. This is a subtle way of conditioning.

The Mercy of Pronouns

Sometimes a you is a lover, but he is not my lover. He is looking at me.

The Mustache

“I mean it, Martín. I won’t marry a man with a bald lip, like a boy.”

The N

Ron Carlson

The Novel

For two days I’ve been weeping over a nineteenth-century novel.

The Only Way Out Is Through

Derek was holding a gun. The barrel was pointed at his own temple.

The Outlaw

I bring out the emergency in people and I don’t know why.

The Palace of Illusions

I managed to talk sensible Alice into a little pink outfit and high heels.

The Part That Burns

Mafia didn’t like me, except for the tickling game. It went like this.

The Perfect Couple

It had been four weeks and five days since she confronted him.

The Phone Rings

On her sixty-second birthday Marge Olson got a call, not a gift.

The Photographs of Your Life

I saw it on her face that day, a look like her heart would drift into the sky.

The Poet

I know quite well that I’m still a beginner and have a long way to go.

The Practice

I lost myself in their minds: for the moment I actually became them.