Most read stories

A River So Long

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At 5:12, the river turned silver, as if it were frozen. She traced the river's curves on the window with her finger, wishing it were her.

Desilu, Three Cameras

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Ricky imagines bending her over his conga, yanking that bushy dark ponytail like reins and ripping into her. He sits, watches, legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. He needs a dancer for the Jezebel number now that Connie is showing. This girl would make a f

Transformations

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Some nights now I sit at my window

Lake Chelan

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Amish-like, between the sheets.

Big Slide

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The screams and howls of other people's children set him on edge. But he struggled to stay cheerful. They had season passes, so the visits there cost nothing and it had consequently become a weekly tradition to go. The children had not, as far as he could

The Wolf Who Cried Boy

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The story begins ... There were no pigs' huts of straw or stick or stone.

Wilmington

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The neighbor kids start, we join in–

A Death by the Sea: excerpt

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I began to imagine the shadows, so rectilinear, were arcing and flowing. I saw shoulders moving, the sinewy upper shoulders of wolves running in a pack. . .

Welcome To Bedpan Alley! Honest Names For Nursing Homes

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A senior living facility called “Symphony Square ” recently opened up in my neighborhood. It doesn't have a symphony. Nor is it square. So what's with the name? I'm guessing that a consultant was paid big bucks to come up with that enticing moniker.…

YOU ARE A FRIEND, SEWING TRAIN

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over taking the sky before near blindness, a clipping occurs

We Get All Kinds Here

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A toothy grin greets me at my Public Storage counter. He visits every week. Peering through the wire first, he opens his cage door, gaze lingering. Finally he departs. Nothing ever placed or removed. Emptiness, that looming…

Extracts

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I nicked this from a 12-year-old famine victim living under a bridge in Disneyland.

7 or 8 Things I Know About Him - A Stolen Biography

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Wonderful When his mother was a little girl, her father would braid her hair until it was exactly right. When she asked him how it looked, he always said,…

Minnesota Menage

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I talk to her, whispering endearments and flattery. I tell her how incredible it feels to be between her legs.

Everything is Fine

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        The first one was dark and angular, coiled-looking inside an expensive suit.  Over her food at a small table in the hotel bar, Francesca had been unable to look at anything else but him.  Out of the suit, unsprung on a king-sized hotel bed, his skin…

Let x

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Let x equal the moment just after he tells her he's starting a club for people who know something about computers.It is summer, 1984, and this is their grade school playground. She is idling on a swing over a patch of scuffed earth. He stands just off to the side, one…

Animals in the Sky

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When the great comet passed over, everyone was at my door with pitch forks and rifles with extra long bayonets. Don’t kill it yet; I want to study its habits.

Two Summer Poems When I Wanted Three

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That summer...

What the Doormat Said

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It's not my fault I was made to be stepped on, so stop saying what I am with such contempt. Yes, I'm a doormat. No, I'm not weak. I have taken a hundred kinds of treads, twice as many pounds at once, and once or twice there have been cleats. Think about what those would do…

Sisters

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The gun is heavy. The tiny women hold it in both hands.

November Is The Month Of Dying

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Two weeks after All Souls’ Day, he trudges through the overgrown pasture behind the farmhouse, his head bent, intent on his footing, a shovel his walking stick.

SOMETIMES

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Sue Ellen walked on. “You were thinking about me -- I saw you.”

Grace Note

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At James’ funeral, Edward recalled the Brooklyn night in James’ Chevy.

Executive sweet

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So

Baby Hater

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You leave your husband and go to the nursery at 2 a.m., painted so cute, go to them, and that’s the only place you want to be, and there’s no chance to leave, or trust they will be okay if you turn your back on them. They won’t. SIDS. Meningitis. A

A Man

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A man’s been in jail for six weeks awaiting trial. Lillian doesn’t say his name. A man kidnapped her from the grocery store parking lot. He raped her at his house, and again in the desert, chopped her hand off with an axe and left her for dead in the

The Serious Writer Occupies Wall Street

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When thinking of the commotion surrounding Wall Street, the serious writer gets very upset.

Scrawls From My Blue Period

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The following was written under disagreeable circumstances, in that I was present for them.

The Shirley School of Customer Service

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Hi. I'm Shirley. I'm not here to help you. You might think because I wear this ticky-tack name badge that I'm your servant. But I'm not. I'm here at K-mart because my grandson said I need to get out of the house. I wish he'd get out of my house. Here are some survival tips…

Slut Whore

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Slut Whore has every Barbie on the market lined up sitting on the windowsill along her bedroom wall, and all their best clothes and accessories.