Most read stories

everywhere i go

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it’s women i’ve loved/ or men i owe money

The Rest Nowhere

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A screaming comes across the brain

Simurgh

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Some say the simurgh is an enormous bird with four wings, teeth, and a human face, able to carry off an elephant in her talons.

Late Autumn

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Rough sonnet about faded love

The Argument

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"What mouths could not say, hands did."

Halfhearted Objections

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The old man behind the counter recognizes fear and anxiety in the boy's face, and sees the brown paper bag clenched in his other white-knuckled hand.

A Clean Tent

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“No,” he says. A simple lie. “I -” He pushes the sleeping bag off of his legs. Their getaway reset was a mistake.

Bravo, Scrittore!

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I hadn't yet assembled enough pieces of Italian to explain any of this, but it was hardly necessary. The fact that I was a scrittore in a language foreign to her seemed to make me especially fascinating...

boomeander

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A CEO would also be a an EOC, only inside-out and backward. But upside-down, both are still what they are.

abalone fishing

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after several beers this woman told me once/(when I was maybe 15)

Unprecedented weirdness

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The weird thing was that standing here with himself, or what appeared to be himself, he had got so self-conscious that it was almost paralyzing.

How I learned what to pray for

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“Mommy,” the voice was thin as a fledgling's. “I'm here, baby,” I said. An arm rose from the pavement and small fingers wound themselves into my…

Ann, meet Bob

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Ann finally got her eyes to focus, and there he was, her husband, looking better and happier than she'd seen him in ages, with the same Bombshell she'd seen him with earlier (So it was him). His hand was on the small of her back and he was talking and she

The Spoken World

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The spoken world is bigger than I had ever imagined it to be, wonderful and relentless and unforgiving, and to be a part of it was my grandest childhood fantasy. I don’t know what the world sees me as now, but inside I will always be a stutterer.

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,

how it felt to learn it would rain where you were.

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and that you once had / still sometimes sold savory pies out the side of a truck at renaissance fairs alongside your mum with her fake braid in a wrong color wrapped round her head. & you called the sky 'corrugated' or 'promising as a line of chorus g

words, for You

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My heart and mind, eyes, hands and lips — Yours.

If There is an Airport

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If there is an airport, it is one of dreams. If there is a dream, it is one of shadows. If there are shadows, there is not much more but the thoughts of a short man meeting a short woman on a runway of forbidden desires, in a foreign city belonging to n

Good Deed Punished (Matthew IV)

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homelessness, you called the lie,

Paddle/ Pedal/ Piddle

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You say boxer briefs, I say pillbox hats

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…

My Man Wears Cherry Pants

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My man wears chartreuse shoes.! He wears chartreuse shoes like a new king right there on Main St.!

some precursors of Mantegna

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Light. And shade. Line and shape. Colour, form and perspective. Wall, wood, ceiling or canvas. Pigment in eggyolk or linseed oil. Stroked by brush or spread by knife. On small panels or plastered on vast spaces. All these problems to be worked over and solved. Then …

Modulus of Elasticity

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The limbs lift again,

Safe

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He is drilling the door of a safe to access the keys he locked inside.

I'm Dying! And I Didn't Make The Bed!

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Five years ago, on January 15, 2009, Flight 1549 took off for Charlotte, North Carolina and, 3 minutes later, made an emergency landing in the Hudson River, with no serious harm to anyone but the geese who caused the problem. (They were liquefied into something…

Riddle 44 from the Exeter Book: The Key

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Curiously made thing

Sun Striking

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Sun strikingGolden snow glistens Across empty fieldsLong winter shadowsTrees like fingers The morning in their grasp

Star Heart

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This is the place I could find my breath. I didn'tSay I understood it. I only wanted to hold someone andMeant to. I don't care about the rules for caring.This place where I could speak was incredibly far from Where I'd once met you. The place where I could…

The Case for Mashed Potatoes

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Steam rolls out of the bathroom as Mr. Larson opens the door with a white towel around his waist. Pepper strolls up to him and purrs as she rubs her long, gray tail against his tanned legs."Hey, girl.” He runs his coarse, scarred fingers through the cat's soft coat.…