A LITERARY COLLECTION FROM VERMONT WRITERS

It scared the shit out of me, the thought of running my fingers across the crass abs of those Greek gods straight out of 1970, with their pornstaches and tight pants, so much that I backed away, Not me I thought, let someone else be the guinea pig. Oh, come on, the jackass called, the one with the tattoo, come on, dive in, the water’s fine. Indeed, if you looked past all that simmering man flesh, the sea was cobalt, blue as barren balls. The other jackass, the quiet on

After our trip to Venice Karl became obsessed with Venetian boats, not the gondolas that tourists hired for excursions and we did too, but one of the smaller wooden boats, working one-man oared boats like the sandolo, pared-down gritty versions of the garish passenger vessels. He wanted to stand tall and row this boat in Lake Champlain. We happen to live right on Lake Champlain which while not the Venetian lagoon is more convenient. In Venice, Karl resisted taking official to

I was married for over fifty years and I have to admit we had some rough times, especially when one of us was unfaithful, oh the tears and screams and threats and groveling, you’d think it would be impossible to ever come back from such melodrama but no, we clung to one another in spite of betrayals and misspent hours, and the thing was, my husband adored me, even when he was angry and frustrated, always thought I was the most beautiful, the sexiest, smartest, most joyful per

out the garden by spiders and crawling folksies squatting cross-legged by the bee balm wearing catscratch outfit sunhat deadheading flowers digging clover brilliant overhead birds talking geese on another side of the lake dozed off by hypnotic insects humble bumbling around me tumbling into blossoms other flying things meandering all ways or none rosemary hollyhocks thyme all that sage hiding in the rows of elephant ears crouching with all the wild the mild pret

I remember Benjamin, the smartest dog in the world and also the freest spirit imaginable, offspring of a big black lab, Mikey, and a little white terrier who was named Isaiah even though she was a girl, this being the '70's when hippies named their dogs and children randomly without much reference to gender. Mikey and Isaiah lived next door to one another and flirted desperately, all of us in the commune knew they were fated to make beautiful music together. Benjamin was one

I hadn’t realized the Gulf Coast gets so steamy hot. I take off my shoes, sweating and squinting in the sun. Karl’s pale Nordic skin is getting flushed. We’re standing at the end of a pier looking out into Lemon Bay, holding between us a shopping bag from Fresh Direct containing four cardboard cartons filled with the crematorium ashes of our parents. We’ve collected them over the years, one after another. They are identical, having been produced by the same funeral home

They gathered at the house almost three months after their father's death. Nobody had expected the suicide, even though mother had been moved to a nursing home last year and he'd become more dour and silent than usual. One Thursday morning he’d trudged down the steps to the basement, spread out a sheet of plastic in a last bit of housekeeping fervor, and shot himself in the head. David had discovered the body during his daily visit. The house sat empty since then, but Shay