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Restland,

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He died a printer finding late/ after so much selling himself selling/ a craft that pleased and paid enough

The Mish

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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…

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.

Snow Angels (after Sandy Hook)

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The weatherman can't predict accumulation. He can only tell you it will be cold. Expect ice, wind, snow, expect delays. Your daughters play outside, dancing around the Evergreen, its branches bearing the weight of snow, its branches

Jim Shows Me Twelve Jesuses

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in cinematic snippets, ten-second scenes of twelve Sons …

Three Degrees of Separation from the Same Thing We Were Still Supposed to be Thinking About

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It was hard to believe that, even very recently, there had been first days of school where nothing happened.

Vivian

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When her husband left she was not yet thirty

Black Orchids

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I told him he was just paying for his sins. He gave me a look. "Why me?" he asked.

Wild Dreams ofReality, 11

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I took my first shower away from home as if it were a ritual cleansing. It felt especially good, even exciting to be taking a shower in the bathroom of another woman. Why was that? Maybe because it didn't have marble around the bathtub, and it wasn't e

SECRETS

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they don't tell

The Man Who Couldn't Move

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Without warning his eyes expertly navigated into a closed position setting off the dream machine long without power until this very second.

Ten Little Indians

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One day we went for a hike. We climbed a small mountain. It’s called Mission Peak. We got about halfway up a steep trail, decided that was far enough. We embraced. She said “I love you,” and I said, “I love you, too.”

Elusive Ideas in a Pineapple Under the Sea

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I cannot find my way back to the bubbling navel of the universe because of Spongebob Squarepants.

A Black Cat

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And then, and then, and then! After all that, this. After all that bullshit with her Dad, the Associate Principal, the idiotic counselor, and that psychotic police officer, after all that, this: a dead black cat. Blocking her path! Right in the middle of the street! …

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

The Birds

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My wife goes away for a few days to the little town where Hitchcock filmed The Birds.

the ethics of graffiti

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Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Tree

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I found him dead underneath a sycamore tree. I knew it was a sycamore tree because of all the acorns surrounding the body.

Panorama

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Ben tossed the newspaper aside, muttering. Carol, curled up on the sofa, peered past the glasses at the tip of her nose and past the crossword puzzle. "What?" "The Brits wanted to fight rather than be taken hostage. They had an escort boat ridin

Prince Charming

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They could have heard a pin drop in the car for the rest of the ride to her house, where she looked at him one last time and found nothing admirable, nothing memorable about him.

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.

Guns in the House

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Jack would have felt betrayed, and my parents alarmed, had they ever suspected me of playing with Jack's guns, but I found the temptation overwhelming.

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.

Miss Havisham's Fire

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. . . catching her breath somewhere between ecstasy and surprise. . .

Twin Lakes of Whiskey

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not that we ever had before

A Tale Of Three Titties

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"Someone should have told her that less is more..."

After the Storm

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I watch from the cabin window the death of the sun, hear the howl of the new-born storm.

Somnambulist

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Although still uncertain of whether she was a she fish or a he fish (she definitely hated being an it fish), the fish liked what she saw of Nags Head. Finally, a world that gave her a choice. And felt no need to verify whether she was a real she fish, or just a he fish…

The Heart

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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…

secrets

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Don’t worry about what went aloud. I said nothing.