Most read stories

Do the Funky Penguin--With T.S. Eliot

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True story: T.S. Eliot introduced Virginia Woolf to new dance steps including the Grizzly Bear and the Chicken Strut.

Paul Gauguin: Annah la Javanaise

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It's the outrage of the red monkey at her feet, And the nude thirteen-year-old woman sitting upright In the blue velvet chair, and the hints of blue at her navel, And at her lips and belly and crotch, that so upset Paris. Gauguin had his nerve

The Edge of Night

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The night wrapped its arms around us as we drove west, taking the highway past Medford towards Philly. The kids were asleep in the backseat and we were both counting the mile markers, staring out the windows with quiet eyes. I listened to the drone of the…

Halfway Out The Door

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She asks if I only write about men, which I tell her is redundant. I also answer, “Yes, but sometimes I write about them as race cars, hyenas, vaginas, or God.” She smirks like she wants to smile, but it’s stuck halfway out her door. Her happiness has

Gregory Dates a Witch

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None of us took it too seriously when Gregory from underwriting said he was dating a real-life witch. Being an underwriter is not as interesting as say being a writer. That's why the greatest underwriter in America, Ajit Jain, gets paid per hour what Jame

Let’s do something with this

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No way was Robert actually surprised that hewas competitive with himself, but there was something way more concrete about this. Instead of hand wringing, there was someone, Bob, that he could punch.

A Little Bit of Syrup

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"I made up my mind then, in the backseat, sucking on a cherry Popsicle, that I wanted to be like Ruby’s mother..."

The Lake

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The Lake I. When the weather was nice, the fisherman and his girl spread a blanket over the shore's rough sand and watched the cargo ships cleave their way to the…

Talking Down the Flames

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She'd always been an odd girl, nearly raising herself. As she got breasts and hips the boys complained that she was easy to get in the backseat, but afterward the car wouldn't run, not ever, like the engine died the moment they used her willingness up. So

Afterwards

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It takes twelve years for the hot water to run out and your skin has not even begun to prune.

The Dark

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Outlined against the thinly layered darkness of the room, there is a silhouette of a small boy with his feet pulled up to the chin, failing to hold its own against the thousand stares from the deep violating the stillness of his room, their long familiarity with the…

Fin

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She doesn’t answer. Ten minutes slide by unmolested in the anesthesia of cheap wine and resignation, the bouncers blurring and unblurring, the room dimming, quieting, the kaleidoscope of sundown giving way to the gentle sadness of candlelight.

Collision

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That black hole isn't really a hole.

Refuge

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cotton balls in your ears do not deafen you to the rocking of your mother's bed...as she and the new uncle set forth on the turbulent sea of their maiden voyage.

Paperclip

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The Americans don't want us. They want knowledge. They want to eat with us. They want technology and weapons. They want the results of research they themselves are too craven to perform, answers to questions they ask themselves in whispers, in the dark. T

Future Imperfect, a Jeremiad

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the birth of a long, dark age// where the wealthy will be eaten by the poor/ and the poor will be eaten by disease

Verboten

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Scales were installed on station platforms. Those who were overweight were turned away

The Moral of This Story Is

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Always take the train.

The Conversation Killer

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I stand corrected once more.

WOMAN DISPOSED OF

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sex trafficking

Almanac

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I said, “Marcy, Source Almanac is a guide for the Apple.”

SMOKE & MIRRORS

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These days I wear a flag pin.

One Regrettable Talent for Tragedy

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Vandalina embarked on her career of serious dramatic roles to widespread acclaim, her depth of feeling and potency of delivery winning her thunderous ovations and gushing reviews . . .

Not Sure If You're Actually Having Sex? I Can Help.

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When I stumbled upon evidence that the man I'd loved and trusted for 20 years had a secret girlfriend for the past 10 of those years, he tried to deny it.“We never had sex!” he told me. And I believed him. For about two minutes.“You never…

Clockwork

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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.

SoliTaire

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She couldn’t help but wonder what 93 year-old Sohrabjee looked for in the torn, dusty lithograph of Marilyn in Persia one of the orderlies had stuck to the wall of the corridor outside Jasmine Wing decades ago.

Creator

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What purpose other than misery/ can cancer serve? And Parkinson's,/ AIDS, and STDs?

Tomatoes and Onions on the Bed

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That led to the first aid box on the bed at 3 in the morning, but what about those veggies?

The Galleries

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We invent our beauties// as we find them and engineer/ our horrors

Crackle

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As he brushes his shoulders against other people's shoulders until he almost has no shoulders –