1765 2 2
|
Next to you, the mother tightens her grip on her stroller. The young teenager tears her gaze from her mobile phone for an instant.
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176565
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The bar sounds grew (as bar sounds will) until everything rushed together -- clinking glass, tinkling ice, laughter and zippers going down then up.
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176533
|
I know I’m slipping
into my mother’s skin. I answer the phone
with her voice; her hands grind the coffee beans.
And who is this listening to NPR in the morning
while the fresh-faced girls in the neighborhood trudge toward school,,
peonies han
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1765108
|
Half-pint Ball canning jars, each labeled in earnest capital letters, took up a whole wall of Teeny’s bedroom. Inside each jar was air she had collected from some place important to her life.
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176522
|
“Let’s see that great big telescope of yours,” she exhaled hotly, “I want to grind your lenses!” The doctoral candidate dutifully stood between her and his massive telescope so her hands would encounter some instrumentation with no optical components.
|
1765127
|
my space heater throws a pale orange light
my white candles flicker in the middle of the night
|
176584
|
I awake one morning to find that still,
the leaves continue to fall.
|
176520
|
My apologies also for those crowded roads you and your families have to drive on. My generation would have built more public transportation but, in all honesty, we just didn't give a damn.
|
1765137
|
a Ferris wheel gently rocks
its last riders
then dumps them to the ground.
|
176511
|
He introduced himself as Jimmy Stamps and shook my hand with the confidence of a man who is Microsoft Windows certified. Reeking of vodka and Swisher Sweets he proceeded to expatiate on the virtues of X
|
176476
|
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,…
|
176443
|
Born, he stood up. He wore nothing as often as possible
|
176420
|
I love reading about myself. There's nothing more gratifying than seeing my name in the paper, knowing so many people are interested in who I am and what I do.
|
176411
|
The closed door swallowed up both voices, and all I could make out afterward were muffled pleas and angry answers that died completely.
|
176362
|
|
176320
|
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
|
1763124
|
"Cooperation and sharing could eliminate poverty."
|
176300
|
Track One Johnny Burkemeister, lead vocals and flutist of the band Albatross Antics, sits on his bed thinking in silence. His elbow rests on his knee, and his palm on his forehead with his fingers running through his dirty-blonde hair. He is staring at a copy of Paste…
|
176320
|
a store called ROCKING FROCKS. In its window was a black tee shirt that said in big white letters, I'M NOT A SLUT, I'M WITH THE BAND.
|
176333
|
Things are a little out of hand. Information fills room after room after room. I have no bloody idea where I am. I have your photo, but the navigational coordinates are difficult to interpret. Where the hell are you, anyway? I don't like mazes — too much like…
|
1763101
|
Loving you, I always knew, was a job I’d only get via a dead woman’s shoes. There you were, the recipient of pot roasts, fresh bread, at a loss amongst neighbourhood widows and divorcees. A tide of them rolled over you in calico blouses, cut off jeans
|
176320
|
I remember being sent a picture once from one of my old roommates, Louise, back in Chicago where I came from. The photo was taken when she’d come out for a visit to California. In the picture I am sitting on the front stairs of my house in the Rockridge
|
176301
|
I am reaching out at you, to you from the nest. From the nest, please come to the nest, to see me and to hear my life story. From the nest I go, and then I arrive at the nest, suddenly, just in time to be…
|
1763135
|
The javelin was cancelled after the unfortunate incident with Mrs Parker last year, but no one could have predicted this year’s sack race tragedy.
|
176288
|
I can confirm nothing/
but impressions of the world//
that appear beyond my/
body’s reach.
|
17621712
|
When asked to turn over the Church's riches / he brought before the Roman prefect the poor, blind, ragged and infirm.
|
1762123
|
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…
|
176232
|
Hair today...gone tomorrow
The sun beats down
on my balding crown.
|
176234
|
What happened then was not entirely innocent or spontaneous. I had been impressed by a scene in Some Came Running by James Jones, where the teenage writer sneaks his girlfriend home and makes love to her on his childhood's bed.
|
1762103
|
Melinda said forget the kegger last night, what we’re about to do will help you figure out whether you want to apply here.
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