“To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. How much can you wish for a favorite warm coat that hangs in the closet of a house that burned down with your mother and father inside of it? How long can you see in your mind arms and legs hanging from telephone wires and starving dogs running down the streets with half-chewed hands dangling from their jaws? What was worse, we asked among ourselves, to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces? Or to choose our own happiness?” — Amy Tan, “The Joy Luck Club”
Some of the stories and poems may be inappropriate for persons under 16
- A Dog by the Ears
- Abrumpo
- After the Dreaming
- Albuquerque, 1996
- All the Sobbing Cops
- apple strudel
- At Kahun, for the Health of the Mother and the Child
- burning man
- Candlelight and Flowers
- Casserole Man
- Christmas Pictures
- Dehiscence
- Descartes’ Dreams – Intro
- Desserts for the Reading of the KJV
- Dolomite
- Dropping back to Punt
- Eighth Dream – The Lion Sleeps Tonight
- eleanor in uncertain way, pulling
- Entomology
- Exit Interview
- Extinguisher (with Unpacking the Object)
- Fifteen Small Apocalypses
- Fifteenth Dream – The, uh, target
- First Dream – Puttin’ on the Ritz
- Fourteenth Dream – By the Waters of Babylon
- Fourth Dream – Motherless Child
- Franny & Toby
- Gnats
- Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Pickles and Fries
- Guys Come in Three Sizes
- High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico
- Howl
- Introduction
- Karen and the Dropout
- Kimberly!
- King of the Wire Rings
- latrodectus, loxosceles, lycosa tarentula
- Lawn
- Legal Advice
- Liberation
- Linear Perspective
- Lost Things and Missing Persons
- mama when she’s really pretty
- Metronome
- My Friend!
- Ninth Dream – Descartes’ Dreams
- Poems 2001-2010
- Rag Doll
- Road Rave
- Sandhills
- Saved
- Shelving
- Shod
- Sixteenth Dream – Scoring Six Hits
- Tahoe
- Taking Calls
- Tale of the Tribe
- Tenth Dream – The Vicissitudes of the Seasons
- The Comedian
- The Congenital Fiance
- the german for it, the french
- The Gordon Lish Notes
- The Hole of Sharon
- The Italian Story
- The Lock
- The Take-Out
- the talking french cat
- The Tellings
- The Tiny Toy Train
- The Usual Story
- The Well-Molded Military Brick
- The Year Our Children Left
- Third Dream – A Thousand Times No
- Three Very Short Fictions
- Tossing Baby to the Tiger
- Twelfth Dream – Fantod
- Vitrine
- Wednesday
- What Coy Said
- Who, what, etc.
- Yellowjacket
- Yttat
And yet the hook is what? The lost. Always the lost.
The hook of the lost can catch hearts or minds or treasures. Or all three.