And again we destroy all we have. How it worked in Russia against Napolean, 1812. How it worked for Sherman in Atlanta, 1864. How it worked for the NKVD…

  My friend Peter once told me about just-noticeable difference, a phenomenon where we can calculate that enough has changed for a subject to notice a change has occurred: volume…

  August at the pond. Beach chairs made of rickety redwood, melamine plates balanced on knees, juice boxes abandoned in the sand when the kids tore off to hunt for…

  My father died just shy of fifty-nine years of marriage, or sixty-six years as a couple, if you count as mother does, from their first date. My mother accepted…

  They call him El Fósil—the fossil—as if he were the only one at the museum. He’s not, but he sure is the showstopper, the reason tourists like me pedal…

  Often, an image from fifteen years ago came into his mind—a murder of crows pinwheeling through a narrow slot canyon, red sandstone rising overhead, thin strip of sky, a…

  The soft pink lining of my cheeks, the ridges along the roof of my mouth, the recesses of my throat: the year before I turned thirty, they all betrayed…

  The best guess, says the seed package, is that the name for this fabulous lettuce, Drunken Women, derives from her frizzy-headed look—emerald leaves tipped in dark claret red. A…

  It was a surprise, really, that we both wanted them—the twin ceramic dogs that live on top of the china cabinet. Will and I have inherited many things between…

  I grew up expecting them, dreading them, that appointed hour in biology class when the dead—or worse—the still-alive-and-only-just-anesthetized frogs would be presented to us for dissection. I pictured the…

  Your father’s tufted rocking chair ruled the living room corner in his absence, gathering dust motes and Marlboro ash. If you insisted, it would rock with a groan that…

  I’m trying to date you. You’re late. Or I’m late. Our timing is already off. We met online. OkCupid or Plenty of Fish. My pictures are a decade old.…