Under The Covers
An old water tower, an airplane blanket, a diamond pendant in the shape of a heart
Sunbeams
There is only one big thing — desire. And before it, when it is big, all is little.
My New Car
After lunch, R. asked me to give him a ride. We walked across the street to my car. When he saw my beat-up station wagon, he looked at me quizzically. I thought things were going well, he said.
Everything I Ever Wanted
Reflections On Sex At Midlife
When I was young, I dreamed of meeting a woman in a small, secluded room cut off from the rest of the world, someplace where my acts had no consequences. She wasn’t necessarily someone I knew; our lives didn’t touch.
Three Spheres
I have not healed so much as learned to sit still and wait while pain does its dancing work, trying not to panic or twist in ways that make the blades tear deeper and finally infect the wounds.
The Mother Material
A picture hangs on the wall of my study. In it, my mother is kneeling to pose with my brother, my sister, and me. The picture was taken a few months before my mother died, and we are all smiling, cheerful, innocent, unaware of the ways in which our lives are capable of changing.
Spin Cycle
I’ve always thought there’s something lusty about laundromats. Perhaps that’s why I’m so taken by the young woman I notice as I fumble for change to start my two loads. She’s very European — or at least that’s what I imagine.
Fire-Walking
Wayne had proposed marriage, and she had told him she wasn’t sure she wanted to be married right now. Actually, all she wanted was a long, hot shower. She wondered how this man could ever have made her think her heart had opened as never before. It was becoming something of an ordeal just to be polite.
Phone Sex And World Peace
The man she loves might become a monk. He is up at an Ivy League divinity school studying Saint Benedict and looking forward to spending a week of his winter vacation at a monastery. She was hoping they could go to LA, but that was before he dumped her.
