Most discussed stories

What She Gave to the Sea

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1.There's a young woman in a nightclub seated next to a window out of which she watches the slow descent of snow, illuminated by strategic lights. She imagines herself falling with those flakes. Her friend has left her for the dance floor. The young woman is…

55 words #4

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I drink with my thinking problem intact.

You're Gay? I'm Not Surprised. But Thanks For Telling Me!

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When I was young, my mother told me that J. Edgar Hoover was a homosexual. I don't remember exactly when or why she shared this tidbit with me. This was, after all, fifty years ago. But Mom wasn't a homophobe, so I'm guessing that what intrigued her about Hoover's…

Band Names

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Post No Bills. The Crouton Mavens. United Burglars Union. Crockpot Mistakes. The Heavy Doors. Fire In the Yurt. Douche Baguettes. Upsy-Daisey. Schmazelhood. Sidetrackia. Flotsam and Jetsam. Argyle Sox. Roachmobile. The Adulterer’

Death At McDonalds, or How I Learned To Love

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"I sighed heavily. 'Goddamn it...' I spat under my breath. 'Every motherfucking time..."

Tonight

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Let's fuck like 20-year-olds, darlingwrap ourselves around each otherand fuck our way to the starsLet's cross that line between you and meand the stuff people pay to seeI know pleasure and it is thisall over me, you, covering,…

In the Sun

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The light was bright andthey sat on the railing of the long wooden bridge in the sun. She looked up at her father."Oh Daddy, where did you go?" she asked.He was young with black shinny hair blowing in the wind. "To Heaven, little girl,"She shook her head."What's…

the origin of perfume

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I see young girls in their white summer dresses and remember how I was like that, light youth that barely touched the ground. Screwing and unscrewing the lid of a salt shaker (sitting at a table.) Swinging a shoe off the tip of my toes. Rubbing a foot u

1997: What I Wanted

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If all the world had one neck, I would have clenched my hands around it and squeezed until everything went black.

Measures

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Blending in at a rock concert in ballet flats was harder than I thought it would be. The heavy eye makeup and lit cigarette I never brought to my lips put me somewhere between “Trying Too Hard” and “Bless Her Heart.”

In A-B-C Order

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When she was nineteen, she began to brew a baby in her belly. She named it, and sang to it, and organized the leftover hand-me-downs that hadn't been worn ragged through by the first seven sets of recipients.

The Reward of Work is Harder Work

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If you stop, you starve// and they just offer what you do/ to others, starved already,/ and schooled, as you, in servitude.

Migraine Dreams

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I walked the desert of the sun. Light was the sage, the Joshua, and the wild grass.

House By The Sea

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We were young, she said, it was all in front of us. We should never have settled for this.

1957: Kathleen Eulalie, Widow

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My lipline's retreated since Tuesday. I'll toss those Hazel Bishop reds, (lipstick on shriveled lips rattles men, scares little children) skip Woolworth's cosmetics counter, save backaching, ankleswelling pondering of powders, rouges, …

Apprehensions in the Garden of Gethsemane

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The thumb, incarnate, knows/ the moment of the misplaced hammer blow;/ the tongue, incarnate, the cool invigoration/ of water drawn from the dark well.

The Flower and the Sailboat

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She looked at the flowerthat grew through the stone hedgeon a cliffwhere the rockswere stacked to the edge of the water.It was a polka dot spot of fuchsia, Petals peeking through the green briar bush.On the bridge,Staring hard at the deep water,Ripples of blue that…

Dad, August 10, 2010

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Satchmo sings a love song over the sound system. People read books, tap keyboards, drink coffee, eat cake. In Barnes & Noble—more a coffee shop these days than a bookstore—I am thinking about my dad and his stomach cancer.The terror he…

Yellow Pages

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Yellow Pages season is on us now, and Jimmy's drivin' a contract route. He'll head out to the San Joaquin where they print, and load ‘em in the back of his Tundra with the high side walls until the whole damned rig sags low,

Holiday Moons

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Not quite full, but bright,/ December 23rd.__ A waning moon for New Year’s Day-/ Portent?

Salmon of Wisdom (novel excerpt, Jimmy Gollihue)

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Honey, you eat this salmon, now

One Last Hurrah, #1

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She was about 35 or so and noticeably pregnant. She was near hysteria when she knocked on our apartment door, right across the street in L.A. from a convent. But she took one last desperate wild look at me, standing at the door. I saw the animal in her ey

Two poems by Kitty Boots

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To dance along the wrack line...

Three Easy Steps:the little genuine things in life/sauteed whole peppers/easy roof repair

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So, once, we were all like sitting around the kitchen table, and it was so kind of like an okay sort of day to begin with. We were all like a secret theater of strangers, a living children's secret circle, meeting right in…

Found Poem

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The waters rose / on the earth

Win Some, Lose Some

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Afterward, at the motel, I asked her why she liked sex so much, and she said she liked the taste.

Naked Launch

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I enjoy launching words into space. Please dangle a moment here while I prepare the next sentence. Ok. You can come in now. Take boiling for instance. And hawsers. The sound of words on a sheet of paper. The manifesto for a roll of sleep. Sleep is oblivious to…

Drunk and Disorderly

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Growing up in Mississippi meant growing up in a “dry” State which it was until 1966. Dry State meant selling alcoholic beverages, except for beer, is illegal. Period. By period I mean there was no distinction between selling whiskey and stuff to adults and…

Our Beautiful Sadly Revolving Broken Wheel of a Heart is Sleeping in a Ditch Somewhere

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The planet looks so peaceful from space doesn't it? Want a blue Gumball? Like a pancake batter with bluish dye mixed into Its big yellow bowl and carried out by a winking Victorian Butler. Like a bowling ball with just the right Weight for your…

Noir

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Upstairs, in a room where some years later, the occupant would be murdered by his lover, I sat in my skivvies in an armchair and wondered if I should call my wife.