Most discussed stories

Mr. Creeping Hands, Gum-Popping Granny and Crabby Newspaper Guy: Welcome To Your Local Library

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Giving challenging patrons funny nicknames is a "library thing."

In This Lifetime, Oh How We’ve Drawn This Close

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Together at last, we'd gotten this far toward the warm end of those sweet Promises we made, once, with our sincerest written and passed down smart Words, done all on our own deeds, with some real gusto, and offered them as Christmas Lights,…

The Etymology of Fun

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Tell people of substance the truth.

Cold Feet

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“…And his smell. That Brett smell. It might become my smell…”

Similarities

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She was skinny and with breasts like a wound up skein of yarn.

Fractional

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Fine gradations of the fractional/ fissure the eggshell whole we crave

David and Goliath

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The giant hurled threats and insults. He brandished a knife that was a foot long.

Not Good Enough

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So where does that leave me, Roscoe Loomis wondered, dismounting his silver, aluminum steed in his sweat-soaked, spandex outfit, and, clearing the saliva from his beard he walked over, checked and smiled, learning that the bike track's timing unit showed it was Roscoe's…

Before She Gets into the Car

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His white shirt gleams

Go ahead

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Sit right down in the chair. It's a glider, see? Smooth and easy movement without that annoying head-swing you get from a rocker. And easy to get out of, unlike a lounge chair. Relax. "Reba" reruns will be coming on in a minute.

Angelic

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Remembering his body makes me think of Egyptian cotton sheets dried in the sun. He smelled crisp and clean even after sweating hard. His hair fell in golden spirals down his cheeks, his back, over his forehead, and captured light just like the gilded halos on…

10 Unofficial Jobs Jake Baker has Never Got Paid For

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Not that their pa really needs the suitcase; he's been coming and going for so long it doesn't matter. The suitcase's just for show. A final goodbye.

When I Asked You to Sing at My Funeral

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It's because poetry would not do because the fireflies were alive that night, aflame

On a Black and White Photography Tour of the Moon with a Sweetheart of a Ghost hanging on My Arm

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Suppose you could bend your whole body backwards like she did, you know, like a taunt powerful bow and arrow kit, and push the rest of your truest self forward into his concentrating face, just like Georgia O'Keeffe in…

Mercury Unbound - 8

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The border crossing at El Paso will soon be arriving. I'm apprehensive about Mexico, all the violence.

The Bird King in Love

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1The Bird King has fallen in lovewith a radiator.He adoresher pockmarked skin,her neurotic arias,her coldness,her impulsive warmth. 2Tiring of his dalliance with the radiator,the Bird King woos an armchair.She's amply upholsteredand groans dreamilywhen he sits on…

Frank's Sad Xmas

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God's real name is Frank, and he stops by all the time. He tries to dump that cheap Xmas candy on us.

A Writer Abroad

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Here’s an obvious fact: I live in Germany, but don’t speak much German. Okay, I speak very little German. Truth be told, hardly any.

The Agreement

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Our Irish tradition is rich in Yeats, drenched in Bushmills.

Weed Fire

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Wind was a sorry excuse for force

Children's Time

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During what's called "Children's time," one day at church Sarah slides her left foot halfway out of her tiny ballet slipper to show Davie her toenails are painted the same soft pink as the inside of her shoe. "Look," she says. "My…

Piece of Mind

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Samuel wondered if Megan could hear the brains humming, but like so many of the questions Samuel had for Megan, it was difficult to find the right moment to ask.

Impotent

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I tell myself I should have known. You were always absence.

86.

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It was late and Manhattan wasn't going to wait for us to wake up. We stumbled off the train — a few puffs of smoke left in our lungs and perfectly disheveled hair that made us look like we were comfortable with our anxiety.Steps weren't getting any easier…

Right Here on Our Stage...Tonight

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When Madeline became beset with a malady diagnosed as Harlequin's Syndrome she had to learn to overlook the muffled, but audible, guffaws about her excessive perspiration and slightly stooped posture on stage. She was a trooper and said she knew they came from those who…

Buttermilk

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I brimmed with sexual energy and it flowed about me like a buttermilk, silk robe. Rich and thick, musk-laden and fortified with my own particular brand of woman.

The Man With the Hairy Back

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It’s strange, what will become of me What my life will be like Since the animal in me Is beginning to show on my back Oh no, no, no Women will never put up with this I was afraid this would happen They’ll think I’m only half a man I’

Goodbye, Brother

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My brother died in his sleep almost two months ago. He was 25. He was addicted to pharmaceuticals. Two days before he died, he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed his truck into a highway sign. It was the last thing he owned. He had been living with m

Under the Drawbridge

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J;>8-<=

The Duck, the Clock, and the Condom

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Every night famous authors read not only to us, but to a duck. A wild female who emerged from the lake just as we were gathering, settled her gray-brown feathers down not three feet from the podium, tucked her head inside her wing, and remained there. If the duck liked…