How to Save a Marriage In the middle of making love in the afternoon,our new twist after forty-six yearsof marriage, which seems to beworking just fine, my wife says,“Did you take the garbage out last night?”which is like spilling a full beerinto a basket of potato chips or droppingyour keys, wallet and shoes in the punch bowl.“Yes, of course,” I say, trying to sound polite,not wanting the romance to slip awayinto daily conversation even though, in reality,I forgot to take out the garbage. My goalat this crucial moment is to stay inthis crucial moment which, in my mind,gives me permission to tell a little lie, see,and when my wife says,…

Workwear One evening, by the tie rack at the Rochester Goodwill,(the now-defunct one once tucked into a cornerof the old IBM building), an older gentleman,wearing an oxford shirt and a bowtie, slowly approachedas I ran my fingers through that mop of silken tresses.“Seen any bowties?” he asked, pointing to his own.And when I said I hadn’t, he told me he workedat a local butcher shop, liked wearing tiesbut could only wear bowties. I nodded, my mindinstantly conjuring the hazards of a meat grinder.This was back when I resold men’s neckwearand checked the racks weekly. I knew my regimentalsfrom my repp stripes, my club ties from my emblematics,and my tartan plaids…

As Virtuous Men Passe Mildly Away —John Donne How easily the words roll offour tongues: death, dying. So long as we’re not the one who’s dyingdeath is purely hypothetical. But then you find a lumpin the breast, x-rays betray a growth in the throat. And out of nowhereDeath comes thundering astride his storm-black stallion, flagof his black country snapping from his lance, the four horsemenpounding in his wake. The sun comes under siege. Constrainedby iron bands of cloud, the morning light grows dim. The customarysingers, finch and sparrow, fall still outside your window,turkey vultures cast their shadows like a net across your lot.The eye finds darkness everywhere. And the tongue,…

Nights of Dirt [a love letter from Ophelia to Hamlet] Your mother once said all the Hamlet men seemed to walk beyond their deaths. I listenedpolitely. I was never one to believe in ghosts. Down here I wear my own stone crown, skirtsof startled soil. Sometimes the stars ignite the dark, & I’ll find myself more breathless,heartless. Once, I imagined the pitch & yaw of the bird in your soul: You, in court. You,among fools. I would have been your branch, unsettled by the storm but unbroken. Instead,I reach through nights of dirt. Is that you, my lord, arguing yet with the fog? Brittany N. Jaekel writes from the Twin…

Outstanding She snorted crank on her pinky nail from a Carmex jar. They were still milk glass and I liked small things,so she said ten bucks and I meant full. She seemed trustworthy or her hair was niceor she looked me in the eyes more than twice. My hair, longer than hers, walked the stage withLoveliest Locks, dirt straight and clear of crank. She was so kind to take my money and run,each day that bad year, looking me in the eyes sort of smiling,sort of getting me here. Bradley David Waters is a California-based visual artist and writer of poetics, beyond-genre, and creative nonfiction. His work appears in DIAGRAM,…

American Parable When I was ten, my father handed mehis rifle and said, “Go, take a hike.” I felt honored to be trusted,and stayed out all day to prove I could stay out all day. Latein the afternoon, I found myself standing on the mountain above town,and looking down I saw my father’s house, small and whiteon the outskirts near the railyard. Above me, the skygaped unbounded. I can’t say why I raised the rifle and firedinto the zenith of that void— the report feeble, the shot Dopplering off,swallowed by the silence that ensued. As I waited, the absence grew,and I began to fear the fall. Would the bullet return,and…

The Induction Why the deli had a fourteen-page application for a sandwich makerwas beyond me. For God’s sake, a two-year-old could make a sandwichif you showed her the ropes. And the questions were absurd:How would your friends describe you? Where do you see yourselften years from now? When I got to, What is your greatest fear?on page eight, I’d had it. What kind of deli in a strip mallhas to know that? I just needed money to cover the rentwhile I found a way out. A way out of that suffocating town,not a way out of my life. I was sick of the gossipabout who was on top and who…

Updike and I Share nothing besides sympathyfor rabbits, his Americana not my own. I am the other kind ofcustard. Still, he lays a tender track of Ford, how we assembleit ourselves, and I think in other lives, we root for the sour stemtogether. Weaken our bonds to godly values, spread malaise likea layer of fat. I connect to his car and relationship to Christmas, theway his water trembles upward occasionally, like happiness. Atthe end of a rabbit, the century turns, and a boy suddenly learnshe has a sister. Acrylic kin, he promises to walk her down theaisle. The only thing they have in common has long gone, whichdoesn’t really matter.…

My Brother the Fiddler The universe sends signs. I have yet to receive oneas clear as my brother. Sitting on my couch he told the taleof how he came to possess the violin his son now plays,told it just as though he were giving medical history to a doctor,which is to say he spoke without the slightest understandingof synchronicity. Already I’m thinking too much about how to tell it, how to relay his words but infuse themwith the sauce of fantasy so that I might make an epic of it. But it isn’tmy story, and really it isn’t a story at all. It’s lines on a graph, it’spoint A to…

Filling in the Blank I had an experience.It could’ve been the falling leaves,it could’ve been the streetlampcrowding out the moon, it might’ve beenthe young woman noticing meand crossing to the other side of the street. Now with my grey coat and my black woolnewsboy cap I looka little like an old Scandinavian manjust walking along peacefully.He’s got some ideas in his headbut he doesn’t really knowwhat any of them mean. Matthew Freeman’s latest book is called Dopamine and the Devil (Coffeetown Press). He holds an MFA from the University of Missouri-St Louis.