The gavel came down with a crack, which surprised me, because I thought that courts didn’t use real gavels anymore.  I thought gavels were symbols of office, for decoration only, like a captain’s sextant or a priest’s bible.  But there it was – a sharp stroke against the wooden desk that sounded in my head like a gunshot.  Bang.  My first criminal conviction.  I had a record.

Read the rest of this entry »

Of all the useless appendages,
your earlobe is the loveliest.
I’ve never nibbled on your tonsils
and know nothing of appendices.
I whisper and it stirs
the white down that grows there.
Like the soft sand of Normandy,
it’s the beachhead of my advance.
I order my words, and off
they go, over the top,
to take the cochlea,
the stirrup and anvil!  With precision
and discipline, too, they charge.
But when you lob a glance at me and my nibbling lips,
everything scatters:  my words, my thoughts; they wade, they drown, or get mowed down in the blood-drenched sand, and flap a useless arm in the wet muck, and wait for the tide to roll in and scour it all clean.
Later, alone and analytical,
I’ll ask what went wrong
and hear again the answer of the ages:
you were unprepared.

You know how the song goes:  “When you’re in love with a beautiful woman, it’s hard….”  That’s how I’ve always felt with Suzanne.  I try to hide it, but there are times when my insecurities emerge low in my viscera and refuse to go away.  We’ll be at a dinner party and I’ll glance across the table at her and catch her talking with another man.  She’ll be bright and animated and wholly engaged.  She’ll be that sparkling jewel I fell in love with, but she’ll be that sparkling jewel with everyone she meets.  When my insecurities are at their worst, I wonder to myself:  what if she meets another man who wants to hoard that jewel for himself as much as I do?  I tell myself that, as a matter of prudence, I should assume all men are as ill-intentioned as me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mohammed had been sitting outside on a rock for about a thousand years when Youssef pushed his way from the tent to join his brother.  For nearly a hundred years, Mohammed had been waiting on the rock while Youssef deflowered virgin number seventy-two, taking her every-which-way his imagination would allow.  In the sand at his feet, Mohammed was using a stick to draw letters and figures, while he listened to the grunting and groaning, screaming and moaning, biting and panting.  Sometimes, while watching a passing caravan or grinning at the vulture who hunched and returned his grin, Mohammed would lean back and yell:  “Youssef!  Youssef!  Have you not had enough of her?”  In a way, he didn’t mind Youssef’s nonsense.  Without the sound of bombs detonating in the distance, or the burst of machine gun spray, the silence sometimes drove Mohammed to the brink of madness, so it was a relief to hear his brother’s noisy exertions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Norm and I had been on vacation when Ed across the road from us took his spell or whatever it was he took that ended up killing him and left poor Thelma all alone in that big old house of hers.  So, on account of us being in Wichita Falls at the time, Norm and I never had a chance to console Thelma or even bring her a casserole until three weeks after the fact.  We didn’t know a thing about it until after we got home.  Ray next door said there was quite a ruckus the night Ed died what with the sirens and flashing lights and police and ambulance people and even a big red fire truck parked a little down the road.  And there was poor Thelma in her housecoat wandering after the police, following them down the front walk and floating around like she was in a fog.
Read the rest of this entry »