Most read stories

A Gardener in February Thinks About June

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I want to be that daring gardener who ploughs up her front yard -- to the horror of the Neighborhood Association.

Uncle Moscow

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He asked me to bury him in Vegas. Instead, I had him cremated in Trenton.

Heat

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It was so hot we walked out on our husbands. There were reasons, we supposed. They left the refrigerator doors open all day, grabbing beers when they passed by, tossing the sticky caps upon counters. They drove their Metropolitans to buy food, leaving th

Wednesday late, Friday early

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I wrote this during a poetry workshop at the Atlantic Center for the Arts with Carolyn Forché. January, 2015. So much more has happened since that stunning week.

MR. WOODCHUCK

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fat furry marmots who play hide and seek

randy the ram

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For you I bring the circus, I reinvent the shine

Having Read the Poems of Matt Dennison

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Having read the poetry of Dennison I hereby give up writing.

Constable Pulce and the Sunny Dystopia

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Alessandro was no ordinary demon (what demon is?), insofar as he had Constable Pulce's number. In demonly fashion he had Pulce's number in a way Pulce himself did not.

At the Jennifer Aniston Intensive Haircare Clinic

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Hunger only makes people hungry, but bad hair can ruin your whole day.

Before My Change Jar Went Missing

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These are the small miracles we witness from my barrio stoop.

Second Chance

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He arrives at the appointed hour, driving up the dusty road in his '68 Ford truck. On the side is stenciled “Sampson's Farrier Service.” He parks in front of the barn. Patience watches from the front porch, where she has just set down a…

Deerhead Puppets in the Forest

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A spark is a gouged word: stewed to annihilate, scrambled, botched in a pot to dry. Lead us to the quiver, let us tremble. Noon, we paw nails under rugs, run fingertips over books, rip cupboards from hinges and spiral open the machine, for the creature is near the roof or…

RT @dadaism #amwriting

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How much do book editors earn? Peacock Love. (aww…)

Poems I posted on social media, late night, when I was drunk.

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my God, I have no time, no time

Early Decision

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Melinda said forget the kegger last night, what we’re about to do will help you figure out whether you want to apply here.

Erased

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You took up residence on the dark side of things, a bolthole in a wind-flayed right angle of a tower block where pigeons and suicides tumbled blackly on the air currents. You set about drifting off from who you were on a tide of cheap whisky and bad poetry, graduating…

Debtor's Prison

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You should have marked that territory like a conquistador, mounted him like an equestrian, left no what-ifs in your wake.

Wince

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Lately he's been wanting to write about love...

Our Neighbors

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It was with the departure of their last child that the Beazleys became grotesquely petty with each other.

February

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a big silent western sky

Rose Gold

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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,…

the wicked daughter

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The air has its dark confessional, and I have mine. Hot is called raw by some, hate mixed with malice for others. I am only separated by this dark window of time from you, but you never feared the lovely or the lonely.

Liquor and Older Women

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"What is a vageena?" I wanted to know.

Revelations

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No snippets for you.

The Tree That Took Brooke’s Faith Away

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The thing was, though, she couldn’t shake the image of that dead dog she had found inside the black trash bag she thought could be first base, right before the twins said, Screw the game, let’s swing.

If we thought that love was gone

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If we thought that love was gone that out of sweetness none remained

How to Shampoo in French

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Commencons (let us begin) our deconstruction of la bouteille typique de shampooing (the typical shampoo bottle).

Wasps' Nest

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Here’s how you do it. First you get a ladder, a long one.

Six Theories of Gorilla

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1. BLAME THE PARENTS This seems to be the most popular position on social platforms. Mom and Dad should have been watching this kid more closely. Period. Because how could any good parent fail to notice their own child climbing over a…

Lockdown

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I'm explicating Emily Dickinson when the alarm starts: three long, two short. Lockdown mode. Only there was nothing in the staff bulletin about a drill. So I tell the students to get down on the floor, away from the window. I open the classroom door and lock it from…