1857 16 9
|
I was squatting in the living room at the party handling foreign currency. Two W.A.S.P. men in dark grey suits—we were partygoers new to each other—told us to keep the money. We removed the bills from a black leather album.
|
185762
|
So, when Daddy grabbed that cock by the neck and threw him into the hole that he quick covered with dirt, I knew right then that men would play a subservient role in my life going forward.
|
1857135
|
The Fuddy-Duddy Writer does not do wit.
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185755
|
After shooing away the filthy pigeons and closely inspecting the bench, he squinted with his good eye at a second-page article on noise abatement headphones.
|
1857124
|
It rises rigid and plumb from its heavy base, the severity of line yielding to grace only at the throat where it crests into a subtly constrictive pinch.
|
185700
|
Once upon a time, not so long ago in Los Angeles, Jack and Jill Woodman’s father remarried.
|
185695
|
Sundays after Mass, Sister Edburga gathered the team in the shower room, we stripped naked in a circle, held hands and said a prayer we’d win our game. A boy no one knew walked alongside her with a box full of jockstraps.
|
185610
|
"I read a cute animal story yesterday," I tell them. "And I was filled with rage. I can't live like this. There must be no more bears, or hamster-bears, or manatees, being hopeless and depressed. There must be no more cute animal stories—ever."
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185630
|
They sprinkled me in the holes of Auburn Maine. They covered me in grain, and salmon colored sand. My shell had swirls of chartreuse, and chocolate painted on it. I was made from glass and Gods left eye. Picked and sorted through, we all landed into a tiny paper bag…
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185633
|
She went up first, I followed, a respectful three paces behind. Now, I know what you’re thinking: I was perfectly placed to steal a quick, if innocent, glance, and she would never see. The house is a center hall colonial, and there are no mirrors on the s
|
185622
|
Her wrinkles came into focus, the sort of old woman's face photographed for coffee tables and art galleries and corporate boardrooms, for prize juries and grant selection committees, and Luc searched his formidable memory for an exact match. Over the long, tedious…
|
185686
|
“No,” he says. A simple lie. “I -” He pushes the sleeping bag off of his legs. Their getaway reset was a mistake.
|
185611
|
Before the bills, before the fighting, before the need to blame something, there was a moment blown empty in the span of one doctor’s breath, a moment where bar nights and weekend benders had no meaning, a moment where the future was as blank as the bac
|
185654
|
A man with bleeding hands at the back door of Out of the Closet
this morning asked me for the bride and groom figurines at the
top of my donation box
|
185683
|
45s I’ve kept wrapped in newspaper in the attic. These are all mine. Some doubling up in sleeves. Some pushing tears in the seams.
|
1856149
|
I never thought I’d miss the sound of church bells, reminding me of my sudden apostasy,
faintly ringing over the rumpus where even the birds can’t get a word in edgeways.
|
185600
|
He went to the switchboard and rang one of the rooms. I moved away to a discreet distance so he could make his pitch in private, and soon he came back to the desk front. "He d-didn't like it much, b-but he said to s-send you up. Room 412."
|
185521
|
The Kharal kept us safe, we knew, kept the colony functional in the oft belabored effort that was living our small, human lives surrounded by death, for in their ring of constant invisible protection, when they did not come, we thrived. It was not as tho
|
185576
|
I'm a librarian. A reader. I identify as a four-eyed person. I've always worn glasses. I got my first pair in the second grade. It was a miracle! The blurry world I'd inhabited all my life suddenly came into focus. I could see the blackboard! I could read street signs! I…
|
185512
|
[DO NOT READ BETWEEN THIS LINE ... CITIZEN!]
|
1855159
|
At the graveyard, the leaves had been raked into loose array....
|
1855116
|
She thinks she trusts this man; she wants to trust him. His face reminds her of a man who once took care of her on an airplane when she was a kid traveling by herself.
|
1855145
|
When I come to suck fresh raspberries'
juice from your hair
pressing the clasp of my mouth's purse
on the oyster of your ear;
|
185520
|
Alysia stretched her left hand out at Kurai, and the electricity connected with her fingertips like beacon.
|
185488
|
and I can't help it if it is. I know it won't stay that way for long, but for now that's all I've got to work with, shining in my window, made of all eight fingers and a couple of thumbs. But the latest pushy words still want to give…
|
185476
|
Alexander Ivanovich stuck out his leg and tripped Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev. Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev stood up, took two steps forward, stuck out his leg and tripped Alexander Ivanovich.
|
1854133
|
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.
|
185421
|
The poet paused
Pen poised in hand
A wrinkle on his brow
He’d but to rhyme the final verse
The only problem
How?
|
185421
|
(For Dancer and Guitar) …
|
185498
|
If you get crushed in New York City
that's your own problem.
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