| 2470  23  10   
 | Our house was big, red brick, with off-white walls that watched over us while we slept, while we prayed for our souls to be kept, while we shared bath water and bunk beds and the secret of the back closet we will die with and never reveal. | 
		
		
			| 4278  23  18   
 | Smoke from bodies aflame tongues the strung moon;  | 
		
		
			| 35363  23  26   
 | It's one of those raw, wrung out Yonge Street Saturday mornings. The smog-gray sky is just congealing into blue over the buildings and concrete. | 
		
		
			| 1751  23  18   
 | in  my youth I was enamored of the moon—that  is to say, lunacyI  applauded the bizarre in natureI  appropriated the gratuitous from dreamsI  drank brashness and frenzy from bookswhat mad things I did!(throwing a bucket of water on the naked couple in  the bed)what… | 
		
		
			| 2870  23  16   
 | Boxing Gloves for when... | 
		
		
			| 2661  23  16   
 | ... I know all about ax murderers because Elmo, my uncle by marriage to my sister who never had any sense was one. He done killed six women in a farm outside of Topeka in the space of they say three minutes, including my sister and her bingo friends . . . | 
		
		
			| 2300  23  13   
 |  | 
		
		
			| 2122  23  8   
 |  | 
		
		
			| 3797  23  10   
 | As the sun rose each morning, so did the lonely old man with it; a sad limping figure strolling across the front lawn with a cigar tucked in his mouth, lighting fresh candles here and there, perhaps on an imagined grave of some loved one long lost to the infirmity of time… | 
		
		
			| 246  23  11   
 | Certainly leftover cyanide-based Zyclon-B pesticide from the gas chamber was used to purge the lawn of weeds, bugs and vermin. Very efficient. No waste. Perfectly recycled. | 
		
		
			| 4288  23  19   
 | Seems like the tar just got hold of Daddy somehow. What is it about asphalt and a man? | 
		
		
			| 2807  23  17   
 | In the 15 years that I've worked at my local public library, I've learned that we librarians do plenty of things for our patrons that aren't in our job descriptions. After a patron asked me to change her flat tire, and another wanted to check out our pencil sharpener,… | 
		
		
			| 2000  23  9   
 | Fred, who by that point had already wanted to call Jimmy "Jim," talked a river. Jimmy, who had already called her Freddy, took a mojo bag from his back pants pocket and asked her to write something that he could put inside.  | 
		
		
			| 2089  23  13   
 | Could sampans fall upward, sailing from the bottom of the Earth? If so, which way would their sails bend—up, or down? And would the strange China Sea follow suit? Would salt water geysers spurt from the hole we dug, flooding the streets of Seattle?  | 
		
		
			| 2279  23  21   
 | The debits and credits of life have been recalculated. You are not due tax; you are owed a trapeze. It turns out you have a natural gift for hanging upside down, knees to the clouds.
 | 
		
		
			| 1520  23  11   
 | Mist falls from the opaque sky and splatters crystals in your hair... | 
		
		
			| 1486  23  12   
 | The skin will stay but you won’t see it,/
camouflaged by creases, tags, and curious/
deposits of renegade fat and pigment. | 
		
		
			| 2447  23  13   
 |       Jackson's a chocolate lab. I brought him home from the no-kill this  morning. I've always wanted a dog, but I did it more for Wylie. We stand under  the willow with the water running out the hose, Jackson, Wylie and I.  Dandelions cover the… | 
		
		
			| 1387  23  10   
 | If I should wake/
before I die,/
just shoot me through/
the one good eye. | 
		
		
			| 1015  23  12   
 |  | 
		
		
			| 2115  23  13   
 |  | 
		
		
			| 1798  23  15   
 | “Why, you tell a story,” one young fellow said. The expression on his face said “How gauche, how passé!” | 
		
		
			| 1970  23  18   
 | Five girls wobble into the train car. Their blistered feet protrude  from the bedazzled straps of their sandals.  Conductor: “Girls in the back with the open containers, you can't have  those on the train.”  A heavy-set girl in a belted yellow mini-dress… | 
		
		
			| 1807  23  19   
 | Mack’s mind held a chandelier. | 
		
		
			| 1487  23  14   
 | She'd have to be careful, but couldn't you just see it? | 
		
		
			| 1757  23  16   
 | They will take you, naked,
and put their tongues and fingers
into intimate, erogenous openings  | 
		
		
			| 3039  23  6   
 | Cavett asked McCarthy what she thought was overrated about Hellman.  McCarthy–never known to mince words–replied  “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and  ‘the.'" | 
		
		
			| 2513  23  17   
 | I watch my mother
No longer beautiful or charming
Her left arm shaking
Her mind a gone thing no longer doing her wrong
Wandering away from me in the mall
To kiss the hands of strangers... | 
		
		
			| 2167  23  15   
 | I blame it all on evil humors. Something's leaking. | 
		
		
			| 1876  23  20   
 | There's always a sound, something triggering the fear. |