Man chops own thumb off, Replaces it with his toe,

Broke, I’d like to borrow your lower half

Before photography, people didn’t exist.

America’s national pastime is not really baseball but football. Unlike baseball, which is equally popular in Japan, Taiwan and many Latin American countries, no one else shares America’s pigskin passion, a sport in which collective rage is ritualized and celebrated, a colorful spectacle of cool violence, an American specialty.

“Oh Great,” she yelled, “a fox hole!” and jumps right in. And just in time, too, because a shell immediately explodes a few feet away, throwing a clump of dirt on her head.

I think “vesicle” is the most beautiful word in the English language. He was lying face down, shirt burnt off, back steaming. I myself was bleeding. There was a harvest of vesicles on his back. His body wept.

Linh Dinh is the author of a book of poems, Drunkard Boxing (Singing Horse Press, 1998), and the editor of a short story anthology, Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (Seven Stories Press, 1996). A collection of his short stories, Fake House, will be published in October by Seven Stories Press.