1853 16 7
|
Under nervously flickering fluorescent lights / your name will grow / fed by the tongues of Those Who Never Leave
|
185321
|
I look at that wall, it has piss-stain yellow paint and water scars from several years of leaky pipes. I say I wouldn’t mind that, if he took out some of that wall.
|
185385
|
Without warning his eyes expertly navigated into a closed position setting off the dream machine long without power until this very second.
|
1853136
|
4. Hers blocking driveway, his diagonal in grass
|
185332
|
A true Rowdies fan begins every conversation about the band with a legend. She would be impressed if he knew the story.
|
185322
|
|
185352
|
Some books are like old friends and when you read them, you no longer feel alone.
|
185222
|
I've never really been impressed with authors that write long teary-eyed novels about people dying of terrible diseases or uplifting stories about the armless boy who made the wrestling team.
|
185255
|
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
|
185233
|
Stop! the voice commands in a guttural shriek. Do not move. You are under arrest. But the voice is only in his head; he has created it the way a writer creates characters on a page, and it is just as real to him as if someone were really there.
|
185200
|
Beautiful,
a country left abandoned by the parade path.
The soldiers that typically occupy this place,
temporarily removed to neighboring lands;
congregating together,
backs to the native.
I benefit from the accidental diversion.
|
185231
|
Everything is painted black that isn’t glass, velvet, neon, or chrome. The club is cold, and the DJ who broke-up with me while I forgot I was stoned is spinning his favorites to an empty floor. Endings have a rhythm. I heard this one coming. I can hear it
|
185200
|
Under the dirty orange glow of sodium streetlights, the glistening pavement looks slick, but it’s only just wet. The mid-November temperature is cool—quite mild, actually, for this late time of year—still hovering in the upper 30s—so far posing only the
|
185232
|
Hair today...gone tomorrow
The sun beats down
on my balding crown.
|
185200
|
"Did I have a choice? Could I just open my eyes, did I have to ‘see’ as he was telling me now I could? I decided to go for it. What did I have to lose? This was all a dream, too much driving to get here, too much reunion, too much food, too much beer. Or
|
18521211
|
The cataclysm of all those photons/
mad to be a part of you
|
185253
|
Our mothers died in childbirth. Taken in by the village, our new mothers taught us to wave at the river boats, to sell our trinkets to tourists. They offered us coins of a foreign currency and little pathetic smiles. By nightfall, our fingers bled. Then came…
|
185234
|
Sunday, Nolan and I drop by the ice rink on 10th and Alma to watch the amateur hockey leagues battle it out in an unspoken yet assumed class war: the buff, unemployed rink bums who can grind ice, cross-check, and stick handle like the pros, versus the dou
|
185184
|
They knew every word.
They knew EVERY word!
|
185121
|
"Look, Ted, I'm on a timer. It's really hell here, you can't imagine. And I have a chance to get paroled early, if you do me a solid."
|
18511513
|
We lived on the edge of a tiny Iowa town, and picked corn fields were steps away.
|
185041
|
On the way home, “Friendly honk,” he said.
|
185045
|
But the world is smaller when I see it /
from the crook of your neck.
|
185021
|
I remember ...all the teenagers offered no-longer favored CDs, last year's cell phones, third-place trophies, team jerseys, played-out videogame cartridges, and candy-colored miniature stuffed animals...
|
185000
|
said you loved me
told some jokes
aren’t you dying?
|
185064
|
The bird studies me, we lock stares, with no care for who blinks first, birds don’t do macho stand-off.
|
1850105
|
'Do you feel that, my little one?' Stillness. Calm. I felt the baby move her tiny little feet and smiled.
|
18501612
|
It's the little things that trip us
up: a small hole in a level field,
an innocuous root in a well-trod
path, a disinclined sidewalk...
|
1850135
|
That led to the first aid box on the bed at 3 in the morning, but what about those veggies?
|
185082
|
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
|
