We try not to judge, but we can’t help observing that our religion is deeper and stronger than yours. We need no priests, no sacred objects, and our churches are your bodies.
Zealous as you are in your own way, we thought you would understand and even support us as we spread our gospel through your […]

So many people came that we had to set up a cordon — Dad used some old twine and fenceposts hammered into the ground. The people backed up all the way into the street and Mrs. Avery called the police. But when the officers came they just laughed and whistled and patted Dad on the […]

At least the food is good here. Veal milanese, spaghetti and meatballs — real old red-sauce Italian. They keep the wine flowing too, but you can’t get drunk on it. I tried at the beginning, believe me. Everybody looks for ways to make the waiting bearable. Some of them pace around, or go to the […]

I first saw her on the train. She was wearing a baseball cap and eating two pancakes stuck together with jam. I sat one seat behind her, and watched my stop go by. I followed her all day before I realized she wasn’t going anywhere. By then I was already in love.
I approached her at […]

At first we were sure she had Alzheimer’s. We sat close to her, spoke unnaturally loud.
“Who is this Fran,” we asked, “How do you know her?”
“That’s just it,” she said, “I’ve never met her. But I remember her first kiss.”
Over the next week, it got worse. Grandma remembered Fran’s bout with appendicitis […]

It was so dry the tips of our fingers cracked open, and we got blood in the cornbread. Then we ran out of corn, and we got blood in the potatoes. The dust kicked up so bad that the men came in from the fields the color of putty — when they kissed us, they […]

A year ago I was married with a young son. We had a little house on the edge of the woods. If you’d asked me, I would have told you I was happy. Then the bear came, nosing around the trash cans at dusk. My wife chased him off, and I watched him gallop back […]

No coffee, no sugar, no cotton until the snow melts.
We thought we had lost him, but at midnight the fever broke.
All day we were coughing the dust out of our lungs.
Early in the morning, we found a baby lying out in the drainage ditch.
Finally the rains came, and we danced in the fields like children.
It […]