A species apart, snaggle-toothed, speech full of spitty hisses. Horse-faced with a hangover, half out his mind. Gnarl-knuckled, forearms bark-thick with scabs. Laugh, a barking dog frenzied on a chain. …

Let’s say the fix was in. Let’s say history, being human and thus short on ideas, made change from an old bag of tricks. Say this was something reported as …

The amuse-bouche was water chestnuts and duck air. The sous-chefs came out of the closet for us, and their courage was as palatable as a raspberry. An aniseed was broken …

Apparently, it’s very, very bad to let a well-dressed man into your home. An Oxbridge accent, coupled with the claim your husband’s hurt, and he’s from Scotland Yard: disaster! When …

You might say that a clod washed away diminishes the whole, the contours of the land effaced by saintly patience of the tide, which knows that in time its tiny …

As a tot, inspired by some adventure In a picture book, you buried treasure Far in the back of your parents’ unkempt yard. You dug bare handed, and the soil …

How can you tell where things hide? How do you hear their drifting as they leave snail-like clues shifting through solid wall? You’ve reconciled lost spouses of earrings, netted a …

The national anthem’s a strange genre: pomp straining to conjure a circumstance under which a love song to a shaded patch on the map isn’t just sad, a train wreck …