Jane carrying her tray of corned beef hash into the dining hall. Jane with two small glasses of milk. Jane sitting at the far end of the table next to Rosalind, Francis, Gerdie and Viola. Jane not saying a word. Jane dressed for dinner, as always, in a plaid skirt and dark blue cardigan. On her feet: baby blue thin hospital slippers. Jane smoothing a paper napkin across her lap, carefully, neatly, as Rosalind bullfrog burps beside her. Jane taking one small sip of milk. Jane looking as if she …

Behind the basement stairs was a box of swaddling blankets I know we tossed last summer. I threw them out. I sit on them now cradling my foot like a broken child. It’s terrible how we lose imagination. Maybe it’s nerve we lose. Is there a difference? I was ten, maybe twelve, when my friends and I played this game from the roof. The first kid up the backyard tree, I remember, earned first jump. Whoever came in last got stuck below as quarterback. The idea was, you take turns leaping from …

The first time you fuck is on a Saturday night turned Sunday morning. After his face finally re-emerges from the back of your thighs, he asks, am I going to catch something from this? And you want to reply with HIV, herpes, the whole works, but instead you scoff and say, what type of person do you take me for? He laughs and the cross hanging from the chain on his neck trails along the length of your torso as he lowers back down on you. You gave it up so fast you were sure he wouldn’t come …

When Harry says hello, he means for now. He means let’s see how the evening goes. He means he might or might not have something else come up and he will have to leave.  When Harry says I brought you flowers he means this is still not an engagement ring. It will never be an engagement ring, so don’t even ask.  It’s a good thing I speak Harry. There are subtleties that only a trained ear can pick up.  When Harry says, I’ll put these flowers in a vase, he means these flowers …

Back in San Francisco, I would press up behind Leon on his Harley, curving up Market Street and the Portola. When he’d told me it was over, I bawled his name into the night air. To stop making a goddamn fool of myself, I soon accepted a blind date with a Wyoming native who lived in Los Angeles. His being from Wyoming was one of my favorite things about him. He wore cowboy boots and owned a truck. Soon we were engaged.  Leon tracked me down. I agreed to meet him at an Italian place in …

1. I Do Believe In Spooks The last time I thought about ghosts, I was in a McDonald’s. I had left my grandmother’s house in Des Moines at bedtime, assuming my children would fall asleep in the car, but an unnatural energy possessed them all the way across Iowa. No matter how steadily the engine hummed or how smooth the ride was, no matter what boring talk radio station I tuned into, they did not fall asleep. Eventually they even got hungry. I saw a billboard on I-80 advertising a 24-hour …