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SHE HAS HER REASONS

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It is a well-known fact that my wife sleeps around. There. I said it and now everyone knows that I too know about my wife. Let me just tell you this one thing; she has her reasons. You ask me how I know that she has her reasons, but who would know better than…

Of Soulful Cheese and Melted Needs

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Two fine-young-things scan the menu board of In-N-Out Burger off Interstate 101. Dressed like twins -- hoop earrings, tank-tops and mini-skirts, ballet pumps — you could hardly tell them apart, except for their Cleopatra and Marilyn Manson hairstyles. As they…

The Sticky Platypus of Love, the Novelists' Battle for Sedative Peace

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Let there fly the sticky platypus of love, resplendent beak of the sleek.

The Same

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The bus is late; the papers disappear. The china breaks, and the suit does not fit.

The Energy of Girls

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Emma and I were in a shabby part of town with vacant lots and overgrown yards, and I wondered if something would happen as we loped beside Tom, who was slow-witted and 21. We were 13 . . .

Cellphone Girl (Part II)

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The tsunami started, ironically enough, with a phone call.

Automatic Writing: A Cure for Writer's Block?

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Knocked off around noon, drank some retsina, checked Olympics results. Can’t find Medea’s motivation. Why would she kill her kids?

Algae Freunden

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She had a strange name which I am ashamed/ To have forgotten, seven times, maybe nine,/ Her lips transgressors, wet with sourapple ...

Someone With Keys

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Mower hits a rock and the blades scream.

Wild Dreams of Reality, 7

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7 We sat in Darrell's truck in the deserted silent world of the down-trodden industrial area of West Berkeley, where no one in his right mind went at five in the morning. "Put the gun away, Darrell," I said. "I mean it." "I can't help but keep

January 2, 2012

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You always complained that Christmas/ ruined your birthday/ sister.

11 Bang-Bang

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The smell of candy and burn... /A patriotic prose poem for the fourth of July.

staircase

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i miss you/ at times unbearably/ a dull ache that won’t quit

Machine-Gunning Butterflies

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I was making good bread as a New York studio musician and jingle writer, anonymous back-room jobs.

Heavenly Blue Morning Glory

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‘Oh, and try these. ' She handed me a plastic baggy full of seeds that resembled watermelon seeds, only smaller. ‘If these don't work your problem runs deeper...'

Taking a Job

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Teaching never occurred to me in college. I took workshops and wrote often. Friends and classmates, meanwhile, switched from studio majors to Art Education, or from English to Certification. Not me. Teaching high-schoolers would be all wrong. Briefly, I…

Me and the Fleeting Glimpse

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I worry about my garden. I know there are larger concerns lurking in the stale shadows than my limp little flowers, things more pressing to the meeting of minds than thick lush green leaves might bring, but this is my own greenish way of …

Riddle 44 from the Exeter Book: The Key

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Curiously made thing

Three Houses Down

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I walked on hot coals. She got ahead of me. (228 words)

Five

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". . . with the impact of a 18-wheeler jack-knifed into a Mini-Cooper as it hits the surface."

The Distance of Advice

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She has a mercenary way of doing business and she's pretty shrewd. I make her stand outside to smoke her cigarette. I stay inside watching her stance as she violently tugs at the barrel, tearing every ounce of smoke out of it, then stamping it out as I wo

Moon View Mountain Road

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I once read a book of warnings.

The Kid Who Knew Something

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Shannon refused to jump from the castle drawbridge to the gigantic truck tire sunk halfway down in the playground quicksand. He just stood there-arms folded across his chest, bony knees sticking out from beneath ratty cutoffs-in silence, looking to Rollie

Rebekah Just When the Drought Was Ending

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But the best thing about Rebekah was the way she floated always beneath the scent of woodburn and dusty Middle America,

VCR CIA

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When VCRs were invented in the 1970s, the first big user segment was people who wanted to watch porno films in the comfort of their own home. Troy and Lynn's upstairs neighbor, James, an enlisted man in the Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor, had a vast porn…

I Don't Know What I might say

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But it all works out. I guess. Truth is something I'm sure I've never seen before, but the more time goes on, the Less I'm inclined to believe in it. Still I don't want To be one of those giving the finger to God And begging for a showdown with an…

Yesterday That Monday's Sun

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wrenched its lower back trying so hard to lift too many stacked November clouds off the newly shaved prickly heads of the slowly freezing trees,like ring weights,and had to spend the last of its hours setting in a small square box in…

The World Has Let Me Down

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My mother and I are close We talk like friends I tell her about people I'm dating She gets excited for me And she asks how it's going When I tell her I think I'm gay She says nothing She does not ask about the woman I am seeing She does not ask how I am doing …

Nobody Steps Forward

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I can only see their eyes in the dark, reflected in the light from my flashlight. It's so quiet. I only hear the sound of my own breath. I hold the flashlight steady. Maybe they will think I'm not a threat if I'm not moving. It's a small hope. Yet here we are, at a…

Fishers of Hope

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June Day sprinted with urgency through the halls of the Armistice. Whenever she passed a window looking out into space, if it wasn't already covered, she didn't bother looking out, but not because of her hurry; no one did anymore. She was young, but the…