Magnificent Octopus

He lives in Germany (he says), but will be here on business this week. We've been messaging for over a year, but we've never met fac...

Each of them had his own special relationship to mirrors. The one suffering from a broken heart could gaze at his reflection for many long h...

I feel compelled to put closure on this book (possibly on this year of love) — My Year of Love , by Paul Nizon. Published in 1981, it has th...

Sometimes, as if carelessly, Michel's and Louise's looks met. The warned each other not to stay too long. In fact, their eyes touche...

Today we arrived in Prague. We made our way from the airport to downtown via public transport. We found our hotel. The only mission for th...

I leaned over and kissed him. Ruben's lips parted, barely, but then he pushed me away. "What is it?" I asked. "I saw ...

I feel somewhat blocked lately, in writing and reading. I tell myself it's because I'm busy with work, I'm still adjusting to my...

I think that in my case the erotic awareness of life, or, rather, its awakening coincided with the awakening of my urge to write; the two oc...

Apodicticity She said it apodictically, without directly addressing anyone, so that one was faced with the alternative of either saying n...

I went out into the undimmed, Katherine-Mortenhoe-dancing-down-the-street-morning. Spring. That day spring was special. Not just a matter ...

Another woman was already standing in my favorite spot by the rusty tracks. Her long coat had a high collar that resembled the gills of a tr...

"You know, Doctor, he has some very strange ideas of purity and beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, he says. I tell him poet...

Close your eyes Close your eyes Rest your head on my shoulder and sleep Close your eyes And I will close mine Close your eyes Let...

I'm reading Happy Are the Happy (Yasmina Reza) in the metro and feeling down, because it's cutting and harsh, if sharp. And I imagi...

We think erotic energy is everywhere — in the deep breath that fills our lungs as we step out into a warm spring morning, in the cold water ...

All the young women are in shorts and sandals. The sandals' soles smack their heels with a certain resolute gaiety. What makes that sens...

Groggy commuters thread their way out from underground, heading east toward Lexington Avenue, not yet up for the battle for taxis. In the me...

The ice palace is a formation that builds up around the waterfall during the long, hard period of cold in rural Norway. It's ever changi...

Between emerging from the métro and disappearing again into the darkness of a movie theater, I would see women whose real-life roles I was u...

These emails took away her peace of mind. They evidently awoke that dormant section of her brain where those years had been stored, parcelle...