1537 1 0
|
Kenya Williams, eight years old, was out of bed before anyone else in her family, even Grandpa. It was Easter Sunday. She had a mission of mercy to carry out. She dressed quietly and tiptoed past her mama’s bedroom. She dared not wake her new daddy, who w
|
173611
|
I keep my life very ordered. Order for me is security. I am sure of some things. Like the fact I work five nights a week, and sleep during the day.
|
136210
|
in her bedroom, opening night of his solo show she is snapping her nylons to center the seam stretching from her toes to where the line disappears into the hem of her dress.
|
190010
|
It's dawn. It's quiet on the pond in the Public Garden. The light is calm, the pollution is mild, and everything is still,except for the occasional cruising taxi. It's the beginning of spring-- tulips out, leaves…
|
112210
|
Trees gaining maturity that waited in the sun, in the bursting mornings and long afternoons, became restless now in new night textures. Sometimes the wind that came before the storm seemed to be intelligent, and follow some unseen but labyrinthine pathway. But now it…
|
115311
|
In the sides of mountains the rivers rush through and who would stop them as they gain a hold on the world? For silences they keep just then, as if from a larger wisdom and different clock. Pink moons and funny coins with the heads of lions and lambs, and the quarter…
|
129711
|
Grow.A word.A verb.Germanic.Feel it.Slow.Old.Young.Now I'll tell you how put it on a page:we'll start with the o.Take your pen just so,thin first,from the centerand thick on the up, thin at the topand thick on the down, thin at the low,finish sharply.The r is a…
|
131711
|
For example, I never noticed that the moon had eyelashes, not until tonight. You said you couldn’t really see that, not at all. You preferred the fact that the word “lunatic” sounded like an attic on the moon...
|
328111
|
At one point he’d said: Don’t you have work to do? And she’d said: I’m doing it now.
|
135211
|
Every day, I write myself further away
From the East
Where we began
|
167910
|
I'm sitting in a burned out skeletal frame of an old Cadillac on the side of Route 66 just outside of Kansas. Back home in New York State my sister is explaining to my mother that Jack Kerouac convinced me to run away even though he's been dead for years. They're…
|
186610
|
There was a man crying, walking his dog
and a woman drove by
on a flat tire
They brought coffee to the tables
in large glasses on white saucers
There’d be long silver spoons
with which to stir in strong
|
96611
|
a poem that unwrapped itself so casually I tucked it under my tongue, just to make sure
|
248511
|
Closing my eyes, I try to breathe it all in, absorb the divine presence that is supposed to be here. Faith by osmosis. I guess it doesn’t work that way.
God has to be here. Why else would these people be here? Why else would the congregation return w
|
154010
|
His lawyer, with looming, supermodel good looks, had a mild case of Tourette's. She would be talking to you and then there would be a little tic and her head would bob slightly to the left, and her eyes would go a little blank, and then this very strange
|
124110
|
|
176411
|
The drive back to Sac does nothing to sober me up, either, and although Avaline and I are ready to hurl, she takes me to her afternoon support group, “Lean On Me: A Place for Manic-Depressive and Bipolar Sufferers to Come Together.”
|
144510
|
When Mt. St. Helens erupted, I knew that was the end of Bigfoot.
|
108511
|
Michael remembered when he would lay awake at night as a child and in his mind escape to the woods.
|
111812
|
Tom wasn’t crying.
A few snowflakes, the first of the season, flittered down and landed on Elizabeth’s new headstone, christening it. Tom didn’t have his topcoat, and he never buttoned his suit. He tried not to shiver. Lynn lifted her face from Tom’s c
|
162410
|
On the day they were born, the old mother eagle named her chicks Faith, Hope, and Charity.
|
122110
|
He, an irregular chap,
Was known for his hat with a flap.
Had fleet feet and a very strong back.
|
142010
|
When you see him, you'll know.That's what the prophecy was. Well, part of it, at least. The prophecy that Tabitha was to be the next Earth mother. That when she saw her partner, she would know. Keith, and his mission partner, and the elders, they had made it so. Made it…
|
148811
|
A procession of our somber youth—
stoned and stunned and
broken beyond repair—viewed
the boy carved of putty.
The mortician painted him
stuffed him, presented him
to us, the semi-living.
|
115510
|
It was ridiculous. We were only in 3rd grade. How can anyone know at that age, only eight, that Judy F. was the girl he was meant to be with for the rest of their lives?
But that was how Stephen O. behaved. As if they both already knew this, and they
|
119110
|
A precious heart unfolding the joy within
Carefree play marked footsteps skipping along the way
Such wonders untold awaiting a time of promise
Stilled in the night by a grasping hand
Held down in silence fear feeds off this soul
Marking its to
|
129910
|
A tanka poem inspired by the 40 million debit card numbers stolen from Target stores since Black Friday last month.
|
85911
|
One of his big failings was getting pissed off about things behaving badly but not troubling to immediately fix them. He was working on being more prompt.
|
142310
|
She took a deep breath. Last night, she said, Who was the woman?
|
162511
|
The world waited with bated breath as Tiffany stood in the grocery store aisle that housed the various kinds of fruit spreads for sandwiches and toast. She tapped her toe and nodded her head this way and that while she compared the qualities of two jars of…
|
