The Five-Two

A MAN DREDGED A RIVER an 18-ton digger slicing through the water sediment hurled away leaving the salmon and trout and bullhead and mi...

TAX EXEMPT The chapel carries a donor’s name carved deep enough to outlive theology. So does the stadium, the laboratory, the busines...

ICE SOLVES THE LINE DELAY DILEMMA AT MAJOR AIRPORTS We examine drivers’ licenses, passports, and faces, and listen to them talking, or i...

FALLING FROM THE SKY It was March of 2026 as they sat in bomb shelters with their families, if they were lucky enough to have that opt...

TRUMP'S PROCLAMATION “Effective immediately, all streets, avenues, and boulevards named for Martin Luther King, Jr. will be renamed...

TO MY 5-YEAR-OLD SELF AS I APPROACH 55 today i go thru an old door behind my eyes arriving back beneath that terrible roof & i pic...

THE MAKING OF A SOLDIER Passionately stubborn, Spoke your mind like you were Born to, while others remained Silent; not that you wanted...

TRUMP REHIRES FIRED FEDERAL WORKERS: THE VOICE OF TRUTH In a bold move, President Trump has proclaimed federal workers from the Parks Dep...

MIDSUMMER MISCHIEF! Milk stands in wooden basins A fly crawls along blackened rafters an escape from the midsummer heat I have many nam...

VALENTINE'S DAY BLIND DATE - PAULIE She was waiting in front of her house, with a bottle of champagne, so I thought, “Wow, this is ...

GEORGE SANTOS, REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE-ELECT FROM NEW YORK'S THIRD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT So I embellished? Like that gimp Libbo, F...

WHERE DONALD J. TRUMP HAS BEEN JUMPING THE SHARK storming the Capitol for a Facebook-tagged selfie live-streaming on Insta in a bison-hor...

AFTER PARTY You should clean up, darling. Lipstick—that’s all. It’s on your teeth, I can see it when you smile. Clean up, before anyon...

THE HUSNOCK A Star Trek: Next Generation episode featured The Husnock: a race of highly intelligent, incredibly brutal creatures; but ...

HER SHADOW War-torn moon, craters, sunken, through the lens: Shadows that cannot Be, Papa had said, without the light. An abandoned, ...

BLACK-EYED SUSAN After the Garden of Eden prophet dies, two men in suits carry her out of the commune down to the road, her long goldil...

DEATH BY VENDING MACHINE "Thirteen people a year are killed by vending machines." —Charles Rammelkamp What about us? How many ...

NOCTURNE The signs have flickered off. The trains have settled in the dark, and unmarked police cars slumber in quiet corners of the pa...

OR SO IT SEEMED He was a fine raconteur, drawing applause for his stories about growing up in the hard coal region of Pennsylvania. How...

AN OPEN LETTER FROM A FUNERAL DIRECTOR TO THE ANTI-VAXXERS I thank you all! Business is booming, cases rising like Hurricane Katrina f...