1311 6 4
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It’s all a matter of warped mirrors. As in the multi-mirrored passage I stood before as a boy
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131121
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People crawling up out of the chimney, then onto the roof, then sliding down it and off over the edge disappearing from view.
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131184
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When Roger was small his two favorite toys were a tiny, squat doll called Care and a rubber millipede.
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131182
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My piano tutor, a walnut-faced shrew, rapped my knuckles with her small plastic baton to smack them back into the proper tempo, an adagio I’d mastered weeks before. One hour until the audition and damn if this woman didn’t break the skin of two of my fing
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1311129
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I had a crappy room on the fourth floor of a crappy hotel.
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131164
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This Tippy’s name was Cheryl — something both of them were so far not committing to paper or saying. Unusual in a salesman, she thought. He is insincere and intends to sell her something.
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131032
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A married woman requests a butterfly tattoo that won't please her husband from an old tattoo artist.
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131044
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The last of your tenuous septum dissolves when you press the nozzle of the neti pot against it.
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131010
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As Gino exited the supermarket, plastics bags in tow, he began doing curls with his right arm. He’d been doing this for years, reasoning that he might as well get some exercise during the walk home.
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131055
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While the other kids blew bubbles, Maddy clung to my neck. She didn't cry or scream, and she held on loosely, not with the death grip some kids have. For five Wednesday afternoons, Maddy wrapped her pudgy arms over my shoulders and rested her bottom on m
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131033
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It is another evening of ordinary sand. The moon worms, all mellow and white, glow shine over the laminated floor. Shay's bladder is full, and protesting with a thump of ache. Shay holds on nervously.Last time she pissed tiny silver fish that roiled in the froth of her…
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131045
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On Soapography, two actresses are discussing
everyone’s personal heaven, and in another room
you can hear a woman who is your dead mother
combing her hair in a doctor’s smock in a dream,
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131075
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I bleed my heart into my computer, peruse The fact they have proclaimed my root unfit for use But it is I! This manhood, this tower Extending up toward the heavens like a miraculous flower, Purple headed warrior of generation, See it standing…
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1310103
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When she was nineteen, she began to brew a baby in her belly. She named it, and sang to it, and organized the leftover hand-me-downs that hadn't been worn ragged through by the first seven sets of recipients.
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1310184
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Why is the sky grey he asked meI don't know, I saysudden flashes of light snowbloat the cloudssea gulls are squawkingexpect them to peck at my headI have nothing to feed them
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131000
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Lean closer, she smiles, smell my perfume let yourself be taken to a wild forest where owls grow and trees fly.
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13101110
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Slip me in Between the cracks in your schedule Between the sheets of your bed Between your memories and your fears Between your eyes and the moon where I'll twinkle at you Slip me in somewhere, I won't disturb you Won't make you want to push me away Let…
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1310104
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Digging in another garden, jumping into another space and time, I impaled a toad on the tines of a garden fork. At first I thought the toad was a clump of clay, stuck to the thick tine, but before I could kick the clay off with my…
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131064
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Corina's skin is a circus tent. Her red-striped peppermint scars are a reminder of Christmas and family traditions. The obedient poodles of her childhood dreams jumped through hoops of fire until they became bald and grotesque. Poor dears, now, they no longer yap. They…
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131033
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"Dad, I already told you about your wife. She’s not coming."
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130911
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The red laser flashes. He asks if I have an Ace Rewards card. I can't even answer because my beans have stopped jumping. I wonder if the laser light harmed them. Then one jumps and another, and I hand the boy some money, suddenly very fond of my beans.
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130976
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"We all knew that the thirty-eight year old mother, with the house on the hill, was having an affair with Darren, a fifteen year old boy, but no one did anything about it. When he was sixteen the parents found out and were furious, but the police were ne
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13091510
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that guy/ MOSTLY understood / endings
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130950
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Please direct your attention to the flight attendants as they demonstrate the safety features of this aircraft.
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130976
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didn't know how to do it
just tried to squeeze on the teats
didn't know I had to grab up on the udder and pull
Unca Ole laughed
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130954
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The tall, standing woman with bright red lipstick, elegant at one time, you could tell, responding, “She has dementia,” pointing at her brain. “She was a Holocaust survivor.”
And the one they’re talking about turns as she’s pushing her wal
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130975
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The man and the lady loved to laugh. She would tuck her hair back and lay her head on his stomach after dinner while watching old scary movies on Thursday nights. She would listen to his stomach digest the food and laugh then, he would laugh and…
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130996
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One frozen hand protruded from the snow.
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13091814
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The bones are chilled now, past/
invigorations of the coming spring//
and its entanglements
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130980
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The serious writer looks back on a long and distinguished career as an herbologist.
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