"How are you?" I asked. Eighty-two, he answered, tapping his ribs with his fingertips.

I placate the hubbub with earplugs but fall short. Weekdays belong to the drills.

The women lived in an apartment loyal to wood — tables, armoires, ornate chairs, and bookcases.

The mind's pretty porcelain resents evidence of fissures.

I trawl profiles. What am I looking for? Romance? Marriage? Basset hounds?

"It is a discourtesy to let the cat be free when the dog is constantly offended."

“Sei così… non lo so… Americano…” said Camilla. Well, I pleaded weakly, I was.

The American president, in Europe briefly, is whisked from locale to locale as if wrapped in a rug. Security and segregation are now synonymous.

At the door, me: angry at an unannounced intrusion, tendons tensed, spoiling for a fight: it began that way.