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Hot Cocoa and Bourbon

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Walking into the living room and next to the tree, he handed his wife Kathy her Minnie and plopped himself on the couch. Their three kids, two girls and the youngest a boy, tore through the wrapping paper like a pack of rabid wolves tearing through a deer

Last Poem

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or the voice that wants/ to be inscribed/ forgets the sounds

Witness

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The violin hung on the wall after that, a witness.

Arcana Magi - c.21: The World Stage

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The old mage said nothing. She did not even return the complement. All she had was disgust in her eyes as she looked at the grown men and women. To her they had no hearts.

What's It To You

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Oh I'm melting all right, into a foul vapor rising from a dead volcano, not even able to spit fire, but only cold old frozen rock like dribbles of putrid plasma.

Woman Gives Birth At Cafe, Refuses To Leave Until Latte Finished

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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

Child's Play Brings Back Memories of Busted Heads for Greying Protestor

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"My boy Jake fell in with a bad crowd when he went to college," Coffelt says, shaking his head. "A bunch of accounting majors."

How to Forget

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Refuse to go to the church service, even though you already missed the funeral. Tell his mother something came up. Call his phone over and over, just to hear his voice, until his mother asks you to stop. Make a recording of his voicemail. Delete it an

Some Kind of Change

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She was flying back in the morning, returning to a long-distance boyfriend I believed she had cheated on while she was here but didn’t ask about because I thought it would have been too obvious and somehow ungentlemanly.

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…

First Chapter of Rain (novel)

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Every day she loves me a little less, and justifies it by saying that there is less of me to love. At some crucial, overlooked space in our life together, I used up my compassion and started to spend hers.

WE NEVER

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No news spreads faster than news of a death. Word of the death of a child can be heard simultaneously in a thousand places. . . the word spread by telephone, in back yards from clothesline to clothesline, with whispers in grocery stores, in the looks on faces stunned into…

Europe, 1960

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The painting was on loan from a gallery in Chicago. We stood there connecting the dots.

Elegy For the Old Republic

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You call the shit in this paper news? ‘Dog Accidentally Shoots Man With His Own Gun, Swedish Man Bursts Into Flames on Train Platform, The Truth About Elvis's Hidden Extraterrestrial Daughter.' Seriously? Enough about Elvis already.

THE WEDDING

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I am at a wedding with a new girlfriend. The bride is her old college roommate. I don't really know anyone else here. The wedding is being held at a huge estate, located on the edge of enormous cliffs that overlook the ocean. Despite the danger of this precarious…

I A Dog

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I am a dog – four legs, a tail, a carefree enough manner, I do this, I do that, get into fights, sniff the ground and so on

Summer Reading

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The summer everyone read Faulkner, I read Hemingway. Out of spite.

Love Story, a Sequel

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He hid in parks and abandoned apartment houses until his wounds healed. He ate nuts, berries, and seeds. A shy, gentle soul, he watched children playing on the monkey bars, and thought of his lost youth.

February Fifth

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We've worked silence over / Like pros, our best work together.

What The Hell Nationality Are You?

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It’s confusing enough to grow up in a place like America, a country without definitive culture, except for ranch dressing and reality TV, but it’s even worse to grow up half one thing, half another, christened a hyphenation of names without connection to

Death Masking Love

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She brought the ends of her fingers to her mouth and moistened them in her warm saliva. The whorls of her prints glistened in the harsh light of the room, but it wasn't her own outlines she was interested in raising. His hand lay outstretched in his…

Phantom head syndrome

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The Bird King suffers from phantom head syndrome. Ever since his decapitation by a critic, he has felt pain where his head used to be. Sometimes it wakes him in the night. It's so excruciating, he fumbles for a saw. But alas! there's nothing to chop off.He's seen every…

Aerobics 6 p.m.

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Dizzy but still alive Inside this conversation I ask if you have a sister And if she'll know me If I'm with you.

Men Respond to Women's Tennis Grunts With Armpit Farts

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An armpit fart is a simulated sound of flatulence produced by creating a pocket of air between the armpit of a partially raised arm and the hand, then swiftly closing this pocket by bringing the arm close to the torso.

Where the ocean ends

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For my Dad Happy Father's Day!

Closed Curve

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What the heck to believe in??

Intro To the Great American Novel

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First, the title: How George Bush And the Lovely Danielle Saved Planet Earth From Zork the Galactic Destroyer. A little unwieldy perhaps but still, a grabber. Already you're thinking, George Bush? Saving Earth? Did he die by his own fucking hand?…

Hard To Know You Can't Go Back

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The light against the nylon walls of the tent gets me feeling a little down. The air's wet inside, but it's warm. The whole world outside is creaking and chirping, everything that wakes up with the dawn's first tepid blue light does so and starts making n

A Marriage of Bodies

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In sleep their bodies drift between the sheets until they find each other.

The Last Quiet Morning

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Things don’t happen here, life is so boring in this little Irish town.