From "Tropical Storm"

She knocks out four pins on her first roll, none on her second. I pick up my pink bowling ball and feel a certain amount of pressure. To our left, the lanes are filled with small gentlemen in collared shirts and khaki shorts. Their shorts feature utility pockets. They’re wearing high socks. Their legs show the weary tendons of a once athletic life, but their bodies are sloped lines now and supple semicircles. Gentle foreheads, many chins, everything moves downwards. Their balls roll slower than our balls, they rotate with intention. They move like manatees up and down their lanes.

From "Airs Above the Ground"

            Everyday with Peter felt like a confirmation that three hearts could make a world.

Their routine followed a pattern that was instantly familiar in that it replicated the daydreams of the life she’d always wanted. After coffee and the ceremonial splitting of the paper into his section, and hers, one of them would ride Belltello while the other mucked the stable. Then, after a weird breakfast of leftovers and fruit and this horrid, Swedish fish paste that Peter pushed through a tube onto whole wheat crackers, Lydia would go to her studio to paint, taking breaks at the window to watch Belltello and her lover—what other word was there for it?—dance.

From "Tropical Storm," an essay in progress.

            We watch the mechanical teeth send all the pins back to the same place. We wait for the ball return to give me back my ball.