Photo: Marcsafranphotography
Keith Stahl is a writer and former restauranteur who teaches writing in Central New York.
In 1984 he earned the nickname “Mr. Sandwich” while making vending machine sandwiches at the Sandwich Factory and Catering Company.
In 2020 he earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University.
And here I am. The “Stargazers” meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I think we should all go out and look at the stars after this.
You guys want to look at the stars?
— from “Touch Me Touch Me” — published in Puerto Del Sol
The third-winningest coach in the history of Syracuse University football eats his caterer’s finger.
Husbands and wives hunt buffalo and the homeless in the woods of Central New York.
Blind whitefish. A note from God. A bear that knows when to stop.
When I was three or four, AA and NA and Al-Anon were my Chuck E. Cheeses,
my Discovery Zones, my DZs.
All those church basement play areas. Fake phones
and secondhand building blocks.
The colored balls were so scuffed and scratched,
I couldn’t tell blue from green, red from orange — whites were yellow, and yellows white —
everything fading.
— from “Doppler Nite” — published in Southeast Review
Two Sisters of Satan sip tea on a porch, listening to the distant echo of duckpond woman, whose sole job it is to sit in a booth and yell at kids through her PA system not to feed the ducks, or chase the ducks, or go near the ducks: The ducks. Will. Bight you.
A pigeon fairy godmother.
Wet Kleenex trickled from Ol’ Sally’s knot like vomit.
There were styrofoam boxes and chicken bones, a broken Captain America and bandaids,
used condoms and graded homework.
The garbage accumulated like snow.
— from “Ol’ Sally” — published in Prick of the Spindle
— nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize
A forty-something accountant confesses his fear of horses, heights, and an addiction to fish pedicures.
His son grows into an onion-man, literally peeling away layers of himself in an online chatroom.
Will Cassandra score a dysfunction-free eternity by wheeling her dead husband into church?
That’s when it happened. I levitated. I was drifting through the spa like smoke.
The hoopla of splashing tourists faded to something like the din of a distant carnival funhouse.
I was frolicking in azure, one with the minnows, then gliding high above the island of Mykonos,
shooting past the rings of Saturn, nebulous clouds peacocking against the deep black of space.
It was as if the fish were guiding me through a wormhole to our evolutionary past —
nest stop: God.
— from “Doctor Fish” — published in Euphony
He started telling me that Randy had done a terrible job,
and offered to have the cable company hook him up to the house, TV, internet, security, lights.
Les could even run the dishwasher, if I loaded.
It’s called Omni.
He could drive me around, too. But I was kind of weirded out. Self-driving cars make me skittish,
much less dead driving husbands, you know?
— from “Get With the Program” — published in Fragile