The man in the ER, sutured and bandaged, told the nurse there wasn’t anyone she could call to give him a lift home.

I’m on my way to Larry’s Place, a food pantry in the city. I park a block away because parking in front of Larry’s isn’t wise even if one drives

When bread is this good a morsel will suffice and when wine

In the paper this morning a woman in the suburbs complained she has to eat too much steak too often because her husband

You have to be married at least 30 years to know what your wife is thinking before she says it aloud. More than 40 years to know

It isn’t a flophouse where Fred lives now but he calls it that a month after moving in and seeing his fellow

When Bill goes home to the church of his youth he finds things are different. They don’t sing “Amazing Grace” the way they did when he was

When you have an hour to live what matters then is Christ in a pyx in the vest pocket

Walt told the cops later his moods come and go like crows on the high wire above his art studio. They land in a swoop,

Elmo has spent 40 years cutting hair in a little shop in a country town along the Mississippi. Vegetables and meat

In 1920 he came on a boat from Ireland and found his way through Ellis Island. He found a room in a boarding house

We’re equal we agree in the eyes of someone Fred says isn’t there and I say is and we agree

I was out of control, spinning on the whirligig of youth, giddy to be caught in what Kerouac called “the whole mad swirl