1655 7 4
|
"Merry Christmas, Willie."
|
165500
|
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…
|
165500
|
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.
|
165543
|
"I'll tell you one thing I don't want to see, armed confrontation, leading to domestic warfare."
|
16551211
|
It is almost as if there isn’t a wedge of wood between us – I can feel him inches away from me. I can’t control the sigh or the tears that escape my body.
|
165441
|
She heard mortar fire, whose percussive power rose above the tapping typewriter keys. A perspiration of terror broke on Loretta’s brow, under her arms. Then suddenly, the whistling of shells.
|
165488
|
I can confirm nothing/
but impressions of the world//
that appear beyond my/
body’s reach.
|
165464
|
To hear my name, called out across the Roman stones on a bridge in Regensburg through the languid March drizzle,
was to breathe again as my head burst through the water.
|
165422
|
Next to you, the mother tightens her grip on her stroller. The young teenager tears her gaze from her mobile phone for an instant.
|
165465
|
The bar sounds grew (as bar sounds will) until everything rushed together -- clinking glass, tinkling ice, laughter and zippers going down then up.
|
165421
|
Two months after Peter moved out, it opened on the eastern-leaning boulevard, a stone's throw from the water. Caitlin heard about it from a friend at a bar three weeks after that, found that the concept wouldn't quietly settle in her mind, and made plans
|
165473
|
Susie watched the record, her mouth agape just slightly, the spinning vinyl unveiling the powerful sound of a voice she'd wanted to hear her whole life.
|
16541211
|
Cellulite is legal to have, either way.
|
1654188
|
I told him he was just paying for his sins. He gave me a look. "Why me?" he asked.
|
165421
|
Naomi saw an ad in one of those slick circulars that came in the mail. ' Wigs by Paula."
|
165486
|
We were just as bourgeois as Bloomingdale’s, one generation past canned ravioli dinners with cheap white bread.
|
165421
|
People crawling up out of the chimney, then onto the roof, then sliding down it and off over the edge disappearing from view.
|
16541512
|
You should have
marked that territory like a conquistador,
mounted him like an equestrian, left no
what-ifs in your wake.
|
165442
|
So begins your new career in the car service business. In some ways you enjoy it, too. Sitting alone in the cab each day, totally your own boss; you get a surge of excitement inside thinking about the money you'll make in a way that requires so little work. Clearing two…
|
165320
|
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
|
165365
|
He was a beautiful older man, late sixties, who reminded me of a movie star with a thick mane of silver hair parted neatly from left to right and eyes the color of that stretch of Pacific Ocean between San Pedro and Catalina Island, the calming blue of a carefree weekend…
|
16532414
|
Does flight exhilarate the sparrows
|
165333
|
The Karaoke Girls are not appreciated. Not nearly enough and not often enough.
|
165350
|
About 10 years ago is when it started. I was 14, sitting at Pop's knee, listening to his stories, and Mom came in crying. She could hardly get words out.
I think that day was the last time I felt the sun.
|
165383
|
Sherry and I stand on the sidewalk on a sunny morning, watching her dog take a dump. She's new to the neighborhood and we've just introduced ourselves. The dog, a handsome poodle, does the deed efficiently. “See you later, Gloria!“ Sherry says…
|
16531611
|
In my upper room, a sermon/
was playing about sundry.
|
165320
|
“What was that about?” Keiko asked as she gingerly separated the lily from the wrapping and the baby's breath and examined the flower. Keiko unbound the lily and noticed that the stem seemed strong. The flower no longer needed the support of the wire, and
|
1653117
|
War came home tonight. We weep and hug, while he stares over our shoulders, like the statue we'll make of him. We pour a drink for his shaky hands, wheel him past his friends the dead, and lie to each other about other, far off places as if we knew.
|
165333
|
Susan was twenty-four when it happened again, but she had neither the patience nor the attachment to see it through.
|
165340
|
When we were on the road coming back out to California, along the Lewis and Clark trail somewhere near Cardwell, Montana, I remember thinking life was like leaping through flames while reading poetry and drinking rotgut red wine. This was what life was, a
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