1619 26 16
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Poets are more like Jesus,/
suffering the cross
|
161955
|
And besides, since winter is coming, the dying clammy ground cherry makes a good Pilgrim hat for the fieldmouse. We found one the day after you left, at moonset, in the garage, building a nest with toilet paper in the air filter of the car.
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1619147
|
where is the magic at?
the spit
the dirt
or the words?
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161910
|
He was the tall, whippy type. Dangerous.
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1619156
|
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161911
|
Life is hard and toes are fragile, which means that by the time you reach middle age, you've probably broken one. Or two. I recently broke a toe when I got out of bed in the middle of the night and tripped over a shoe. When friends and family consoled me with…
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161966
|
The man and the whore lay in bed together. It was a cold night and they were warmed by the heat beneath the…
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161900
|
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."
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1619115
|
He looked straight at her, not to challenge her, but to better gauge what it was she would throw at him. Her eyes always darted to the thing right before her red, swollen fingers snatched at it, like a thing possessed.
|
161884
|
Your voice so soft / I wish it was touch.
|
161876
|
He hasn't had a wedding ring in years. When George's knuckles began to swell — a little arthritis — his ring dug into his finger so bad his wife Loren took him to the ER and had it cut off. The ring, not the finger. He never knew there was a tool to cut rings,…
|
161800
|
The money stank on the table. Money is dirty she said, one of the dirtiest things. So many people touch it. This pile of brine would not explain its reek, only demanded that we accepted its stench as requisite. It had to have been the cash that stank, prior to its arrival…
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161833
|
In a corner of a neighbor’s land too stony to till Cob makes a mystery.
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161887
|
The blues were born on the ghost train that rolled through the Delta and gave Memphis breath back in 1902. It's low moaning sound brought young black men running, dogs hot in pursuit, toward glory that danced in a moonlight…
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1618129
|
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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16181310
|
Why is there a heavy weight and a chain and a padlock in her woodstove? Because, she says to herself, slightly hysterically, because this is yet another thing that you must carry. Why? Because life is full of chains and padlocks and heavy weights. Hea
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16181715
|
With such a world/
one must invent a heaven
|
161830
|
It started (or maybe ended) with the boot flying off the balcony and bouncing in the dead grass in front of our building.
|
161834
|
My people rested naked sandwiches on the arms of chairs, and always had an open saucer with half melted butter, a block of Velveeta cheese in the freezer, an open rice cooker.
|
161842
|
{A} So I think maybe I am a robot. If I was a robot, I would do lewd things, metallic (cold, hard, shiny, heavy, malleable, loud, acrid, industrial, immovable, unstoppable) things. I would do the things I do in my dark powerless dreams. People would understand and…
|
161800
|
Would a chickenshit leave her like I did yesterday?
|
161832
|
He kept the lawn mowed at the perfect height. He mowed it twice a week to one inch. Some weeks he mowed it a third time for good measure.
|
1618106
|
He is drilling the door of a safe to access the keys he locked inside.
|
161800
|
The desk calendar was brilliant, unused. The problems with it didn't begin until March.
|
16182713
|
It’s beautiful to look at and to hold/
though true musicians would be appalled/
by the black plastic
|
161721
|
Face defined-front part of head
Cybil's eyes stick to a mirror and guard the woman's skin. The woman's image could be the result of uncontrolled narcissism, yet dry wrinkles are visible from her reflection. Disguise cream covers some of the woman's c
|
161720
|
That put a real crimp in our already crimped sex life. Actually I didn’t mind as much as Allison minded. It made her real grumpy when she didn’t get laid. I could never understand how she could bear so much pain, because she was so small that it was l
|
161782
|
The Numbers will never romp up the stairs from the laundry room to slip warm socks on your feet on a winter’s night.
|
161720
|
I dared to dream whether she was coming or was she going
|
161755
|
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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