1633 8 8
|
I can confirm nothing/
but impressions of the world//
that appear beyond my/
body’s reach.
|
163345
|
I have/been you/years before/of course
|
163350
|
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.
|
163321
|
Sarge had done this before. Not with this many rookies and not on a one-way trip. This was a suicide mission. The boys didn't know it, but he did. They weren't coming back. Hell, they couldn't come back
|
163333
|
She went up first, I followed, a respectful three paces behind. Now, I know what you’re thinking: I was perfectly placed to steal a quick, if innocent, glance, and she would never see. The house is a center hall colonial, and there are no mirrors on the s
|
1633127
|
my space heater throws a pale orange light
my white candles flicker in the middle of the night
|
163344
|
At any moment, she'll come outside to pick up the day’s newspaper. He can see it resting beneath the blooming crape myrtle, its plastic wrapper glistening with dew.
|
163342
|
It wasn't hidden, exactly, but kept in a place where she wouldn't be expected to look: a photograph of Roger, naked and supine, looking at the camera without surprise.
|
16331411
|
The beachy slope
never draws such goliaths.
|
16321616
|
To See Who's There Able these days to search through centuries, I click, scribble, cut and paste, skim, reject, record, resurrect a wet stone wall, the smell of burning peat. Bob's your uncle, Peggy's …
|
163287
|
“Susan,” he says menacingly, as if he’s a husband who’s caught a cheating wife in a discreet liaison with another man. “I thought I made myself clear about this sort of thing.”
|
1632149
|
I assemble myself daily//
from the ready-mades/
of a fast talking world,
|
163297
|
Rory and Betty Sloan entered the first of 40 rooms in the new Motel 6 to place Holy Bibles in 40 night tables.
|
163211
|
Her ghost/kept coming back/to Hamlet
|
163263
|
I stand corrected once more.
|
163163
|
Every day is exactly the same.
|
163177
|
My wife and I were looking for a "fixer-upper." We were strange that way. We were leaving a rental which had cat tunnels built into the walls. One villa we toured had a heartbeat. In the basement, in place of a well pump, was a heart made of fibrous roots which had…
|
163171
|
Space, blank, uninterrupted, but then a fissure, a crack, a corridor, and down it you're walking.
|
163121
|
"They treat us like shit," the mathematician said. "They think they can just take us and electrocute us and drown us."
|
16311510
|
He died a printer finding late/
after so much selling himself selling/
a craft that pleased and paid enough
|
16311512
|
You anchor the real
You make love to the true
I am bound to you in consecration
|
163033
|
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.
|
1630129
|
I love to watch Kim work. She styles and cuts hair. When she is working on a customer, she is all business. The look on her face is priceless.
|
1630149
|
Maybe tonight, maybe next week,/
maybe only in my waking dreams,/
I’ll teach another lesson-
|
163053
|
Wafting wisps of fondness twinkling
in time with fairy lights pointing out lawns in cities
|
163032
|
Matthias Fenstermacher loved onions, but hated slicing them, and so he labored to produce a tearless variety. His first attempt was indeed tearless--instead of weeping, the slicer was overcome by fits of uncontrollable giggles. The potential hazard was
|
1630105
|
'Do you feel that, my little one?' Stillness. Calm. I felt the baby move her tiny little feet and smiled.
|
163011
|
No way to know why she's here, but scars and scabs can hold more information than a file or chart.
|
1630178
|
|
163000
|
My novel-in-stories, NAN, is now available as an ebook for $6.99. Thanks to everyone who read the first 7 published stories here on Fictionaut.
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