1844 2 1
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Enter Tipitina’s – the rotation hole
where electric, shoeless uncles
allocate their copper goulashes
to catch white dripwater.
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1844104
|
What happens to a town when all of its songbirds go on strike?
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184385
|
For the next two hours, Ed goes nonchalantly about his business, buck naked the whole time. He putters around the house, writes e mails, waters plants, vacuums the rug and sweeps the porch. I pretend to ignore his nudity
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184375
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Every time I squished an ant with my finger, I felt a piece of me loosen and chisel off.
|
184355
|
“You’re not in Saigon anymore, Mai Bi'ch,” I said, craning to read her name badge. “They’ll need to be much better than that if you want to stay in this country.”
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1843103
|
He wanted me to learn the business, to become the son he always wanted but never had. I eagerly complied.
|
184322
|
Marion had decided to stop whenever she came upon Amarillo. It was close to two a.m. when she pulled into the motel parking lot. Momma, read the nametag on the woman at reception. Her face was illuminated by a TV. Her hair curlers were illuminated by the lone desk lamp…
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1843104
|
They live a simple life..two solitudes by lamplight.
|
1843126
|
|
18431210
|
Christ walks the streets of Venice,/has long since become a regular . . .
|
18431817
|
Soon, she will turn to liquid
|
18422517
|
The scent of fresh cut grass./
The idiot sense of accomplishment/
mowing the lawn can bring.
|
18422112
|
The decision is made. I am going to a Zumba class. What better way to achieve behavior modification than to leave my TV and fuzzy bear slippers behind for some hot Latin aerobics in a strip-mall? I try to pull my hair into a ponytail that will make the two inches of…
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184211
|
When I was six, my father brought home a fishbowl. Look out for the inhabitants, he said. You can play Neptune in their microcosm of the sea.
|
184293
|
One night we were invited out for dinner, and we got into a knock-down, drag-out that afternoon. My wife got so angry I had to hold her down on the bed.
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184252
|
Man, you never ceased to crack me up! If you thought you'd just been called a homo, you probably wouldn't want to try to disprove it by grabbing hold of a naked guy and wrestling him to the floor of a shower room.
|
184211
|
I hear the car door slam. Steve, about to duck daddy-duty: Just gonna take a run to the Quickway. "Rudy," I say, "go get in the car. Tell Papo I said Wait."
|
18423012
|
What scares her about libraries are unshelved books, the ones you thumb through while you are waiting for the elevator, because you realize that there are too many books in the world and you are holding that particular book only because it is lost.
|
184263
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Seph loved to scare her mother in the garden by picking up a worm with the tines of her gardening fork and chasing her with it, the dirty-pink body twisting on the end. Dee would scream a little, always eyes on the worm, and run slowly, as if…
|
184241
|
4. If the property line is a symbol, what about the neighbor girl's window, the flickering candle in her room, her black cotton panties?
|
184242
|
All right, so the frog I risked my lips on (not to mention the contents of my stomach) . . . .
|
18411615
|
One by one I lost my desires.
|
1841106
|
—Pretty tulips, said the woman.
|
184183
|
“Who says?” she purred in reply
“They all do” he countered smiling , chewing on an ice cube
“All of them, huh?”
She leaned forward, raising a wicked left eyebrow and whispered,
“And just who are they, anyway?”
|
184133
|
IN BOX 12 OF DD FORM 214, the Department of Defense requires a narrative reason for every military discharge. Mine reads: Continued involvement of a discreditable nature with civilian and military authorities.
|
18411917
|
A flash in seven chapters.
|
184044
|
|
184053
|
I hoped I did not look as panicked as I tried not to feel.
|
184065
|
We agreed I would go back up
to the cabin for another bottle.
|
184062
|
The night is a jelly slosh, a fertile rumble, a rhumba, black and seeping, thick. An arm rises.
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