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There is a cruelty in abstraction. It cuts into flesh. It relies on our fear of mortality for its meaning. The way it disturbs, distresses is meant to undermine some illusion of duration, of time controlled, even simply perceived. My paintings were abstract and splashed with guilt as much as paint,…

The secret that I held closest, the secret that I never told anyone, that I shared with no one, was that I had married Linda without loving her. I wanted to love her. I liked her immensely, thought the world of her, respected her, but I could not then say that I loved her. I probably came to love h…

It was either in the yard, the kitchen, or the car, but Linda asked me a question so disturbing that where it was asked was unimportant. She asked, “If you could keep something like this from me, what other secrets are you hiding?”

Let’s say it was in the car, because there is no escaping a conv…

I heard her move around the room, but I kept my eyes closed. She told me I could open them and I did. Against the wall pinned to a foam-core board that leaned against the wall was a watercolor. The paper was about twenty by thirty inches. The work was green, green leaning into blue in places, edged…

What was wonderful was that the sex was tender, that we kissed, that we were slow, that we were a little clumsy, a lot clumsy when it came to the condom, my clumsiness and the object itself making me self-aware, embarrassed, a bit ashamed. But that faded when she kissed me. I imagined in the middle…