1716 11 5
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A compliment is candy to the heartbroken, oxygen to a suffocating flame. The best hunter picks his prey carefully, selecting his line like an archer pulling an arrow from a quiver, quickly and efficiently, then flick! the line cuts through the air and…
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171644
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Do you spend most of your time on Facebook, or all of your time on Facebook?
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1716117
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Prozac, Lithium, shock treatment,
a time machine, or to ask
Oz that you grow a new heart,
whatever it takes.
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171684
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He was ready for the rub. Tense. She could always tell. The legs, the shuffles. He had to be frantic before he would come to her, his own wife. Vanity, fright. She could read him like a book open on the table, turn his pages the way a fish flakes. "It's comfort night,…
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171621
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Unlike me, Gino could walk up to a group of unattached women, say something sensitive and thoughtful like “Hey, hey, hey!”–and suddenly the fun would begin.
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171676
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She loved me once. When we were young and the world revolved slowly in our hands. She never said as much, but she did. I knew by the way she moved, the looks, the whispers in the dead of night that carried only to my ears. We spent weeks on that beach in…
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171673
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Note to self: look up Bobby Sands.
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171698
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We know a poem isn't going to stop you From invading our town. It won't get you to Listen to our birds any more than to our Sunsets. That's not why we do it. We know A poem isn't going to break the blade of Your knife like an…
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1715129
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The bus is late; the papers disappear.
The china breaks, and the suit does not fit.
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171587
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When the full moon changes trajectory and comes close it pushes you to different gravitational fields
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171520
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This is an older story that was inspired by research on naming conventions while trying to find record of my own ancestors in the Ukraine. I did not find them. Instead I was inspired to write this.
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171533
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How her camisole strap falls, her bare shoulder, her tattooed arm like an old, Coney Island mural. That dream she had: I bought her a fake, diamond necklace in Manhattan. She wanted to kiss me in the alley but was afraid of the rats
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171550
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I like to think of my poetry as fungus, sprouting out of the dank and fertile soil of my imagination.
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171576
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A year after we'd last spoken I can still remember your commentary, our ill-fated reunion at the baggage claim forever immortalized as this solitary instance of unobstructed joy.
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171444
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A man jumped off the High Level Bridge this morning.
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1714129
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When did the air become warning?That clairvoyant delft and Delphic sky.What strange and ardent premonitionheld sway? Where were we goingbefore this hard work of constant falling?We were catching cabs and making breakfast,ironing, cursing late trains; hoping the deal…
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171420
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A universe, all of it, was encased in glass.
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171473
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I, the energies moving through this body, in this particular parallel reality in this multiverse, am standing out in the middle of the night, under only stars, and surrounded by the soft, organic shapes of a tree line.
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1714128
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Are they too old for life's little pleasures? The answer comes as I pass them on the canyon road one morning.
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171421
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The Bridge Barstow had not wanted to listen to Griff. Griff was not making the right decisions, or he thought Griff was not making the right decisions. Thought he was walking a…
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171442
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They leaned against the hood of his pickup, which sat heavy on its wheels, the back of it filled with the things that he’d held out of the yard sale three days earlier.
“When’re you leaving?” she asked.
“Early. Get on down the road. Shut ’er down ea
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1713164
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He ran his forefinger round the rim of the lid then sucked at his fingertip. The texture's like chalk, he thought, it tastes of earth. He hadn't anticipated this — but dipped his finger in again and swallowed. It was like scraping his tongue against a blackboard on…
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171321
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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
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171376
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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…
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171395
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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.
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171351
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When Bill was in the hospital, one month bleeding into the next, his mother visited exactly twice, both times complaining of the things she needed or couldn’t get rid of: mop heads, bleach, dustpans, detergents, grease, turgid water in the basement. And
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171322
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When the sky was thinner and water faster, we would chase the falling stars.
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171354
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Aubrey pulled close the wool cloak that used to belong to a pilgrim and wondered if some of that saintliness and pardon might rub off. The mail was late and the bushes damp, but at least years of living in the woods had taught Aubrey to avoid thorns…
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171397
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I stand at the edge of the water naked as a newborn. Tiny ripples lick my toes.
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171300
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"Umm... T-shirt, sweats. You know, typical sleepwear for me. I had been in these jeans for the video shoot, but they had to go."
"J-jeans, huh?" Lucas started to falter.
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