Every year on his death day I send an email to his old address: troutbum@… at what? This year it has disappeared like his voice, his touch, his scent on two flannel shirt hanging shoulderless in my closet.

In life, he was a pitcher—his dad, the Little League coach, commanded him to throw a hundred balls at night for practice, wearing out his arm, eventually giving up the game altogether.

The few words at the top of a page that jabs like a jagged fingernail, despised by those who arrange words into neat columns …

walking in the front door, I have to catch myself at the threshold …

Two months after, she realized that she could not envision his eyes — smoky brown, heavily lashed — searching for her.