Most read stories

Frozen Bird Pie

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I like how you completely disappeared inside a undetermined and yet planned point of pretty good view, like a rabbit with a gold chained pocket watch, like a stunned, frozen bird with a still burning bullet in its tinyfeathered brain. You could…

February 1975 Lansing, MICHIGAN

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Ripper the dog died after eating a Quarter which had lodged in Ripper's throat choking her to death. Steve Latino buried her in the backyard the next morning. He felt nothing…

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.

He Ages

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'love is when the body goes away.'

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.

3 Poems

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We have always been a trashy species./ We study ourselves by examining/ garbage-- a pile of mussel shells here,

Long Sticks Are Often Useful

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It was just lying there by the side of the road next to a mailbox, pockets turned out, weeds kinda rolled flat around it. I counted three nickels, a dime, and a cigar butt too. I could sure use the change for gum, but I didn't want to get near it. It looked dead,…

Someday, Somewhere, waiting for me.

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Out in the open air, the sun's rays washing over the dead, open fields, Nick lay, his back against the wall of the train platform, eyes facing the sky, hands outstretched to the…

song of the dog: Degas

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With her head thrown back and mouth open she howls into the dark green night, letting her gloved hands droop like the front paws of a dog. A large orange corsage attached to the bosom of her gown. Around her thick neck, a ribbon of black velvet. Her p

Sky Without a Song

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He hung up and I sang some whiney lyric about wanting him back. You know the songs that say the same shit: I’m an idiot. Love me anyway. I’m Velcro with nothing to stick to and you’re a nappy surface that gives me a reason to exist.

Beowulf Is Pillow

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Now that school is back in session, we move through our days like cage fighters, tagging in and out of matches: The Battle of the Bottle, The Diaper Duel, The Pout Bout. So while I'm assembling a casserole for tomorrow, Susan feeds Margot. While she washe

Twin Lakes of Whiskey

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not that we ever had before

Almanac

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

El Desdichado by Nerval

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Give me back my / singularity, my tristesse, my photo ID.

Signs and Wonders

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Bag worms hang in their cloudy white hammocks. This is the month of webs when long-bodied yellow and black spiders sign their autographs.

Molly was a F***ing Tourist

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The boys drank in one room. The girls in another. Always the same, no matter the letters. Greek Letters. Shabby sofa on the burnt-out lawn.

Preparedness

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In the boat on the way there I knew we'd see something spectacular, and was prepared.When the glacier dropped large pieces of ice into the Arctic ocean and sent a long wave at us, I screamed and screamed.My parents had their backs to the glacier and missed everything. …

The Little Things (three versions)

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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...

Emily's Letter to her Husband's Lover

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I almost kept him on the shelf with all the trophies.

Creator

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

Certainty

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All I know about the futureis that every one alwaysgets to exactly where they are.

Momma’s Don’t let Your Daughters Grow up to be Cowdykes

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She could see very clearly in her mind many size five girls with radically short hair and Cowdyke outfits from places like L. L. Bean.

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…

Adultery and Africa

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“What would you think if I committed adultery?” She pauses very briefly before replying. “What, you got time on your hands?”

The Death of Childhood Heroes (or "Roadkill")

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We were pushing ninety down the highway through a stretch of what rightfully should have been called the Badlands. We were both absorbed and coping with the rapidly escalating stages of desperation and so neither of us noticed when the yellow figure stepped…

Cats Do It Doggie Style

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Xao Ping reflexively dug her claws into the plush chenille of the sofa and let out a low yowl. She knew the old lady would be mad if she tore the fabric, but she couldn’t help it.

Home for the Holidays

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Deployed to Afghanistan for more than half of his two-year marriage, Trent is coming home for the holidays. But which holiday, exactly? And will he make it?

A Safe Place

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I think of our first morning in front of the mirror and the hairbrush that we shared—the hairs in it brown from you, blonde from me. I miss this day and when I cannot sleep, I watch your window from my room until your light goes out. Sometimes, I can se

The End of My Second Life

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We are moments away from the end, and it feels like it.

Car Alarm

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That’s the body for you.