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Glory at the Motel 6

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Rory and Betty Sloan entered the first of 40 rooms in the new Motel 6 to place Holy Bibles in 40 night tables.

Blip

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‘They will follow, but we have to go now’ ‘Wait , I can see something familiar...’

MR. WOODCHUCK

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fat furry marmots who play hide and seek

At the Fair

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You're on the Ferris wheel, and the wind is blowing just a little bit, and the sky is invisible behind a wash of white clouds, and your little yellow box tips when you look down, down to the fairway swinging. In the boxes below grandmothers are shrieking …

Reflections

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Today the color of the skyremakes my heart into somethingless willing to break, or to judge,and I am thankful for it. Acolor not unlike walking chestdeep in the ocean and seekingbeautiful clouds and thinking Iwill be back. Dreaming with the sky.Please stop lying to me. A…

Confessions of a Politician

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Forgive me father for I have sinned.” “Tell me how you have sinned, my son?” Lies, father. I have told lie after lie in pursuit of my personal gain. I have lied to my family, my friends, to thousands of people who desired nothing from me but the tr

The Virgin of Last Resort

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In a little dirt church at the end of the world stands the ikon of an unrecognized saint.

War and Peace

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War The once shining lake was busy draining itself. All the better cared for boats were looking like disjointed discarded single shoes in a messed up paint chipped closet. No one was thinking well okay a leaky sole is better than a wounded heel. You get the…

In A-B-C Order

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When she was nineteen, she began to brew a baby in her belly. She named it, and sang to it, and organized the leftover hand-me-downs that hadn't been worn ragged through by the first seven sets of recipients.

Stories of Love Under a Full Moon

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What do you do when someone’s in love and you know it’s wrong?

Because words are insufficient

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The day you came to the wedding the sky was so, so brightly July./ I saw my face where I left it the last time . . . .

Four Out of Seven

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Four nights out of sevenI will lay with youFour nights out of sevenIt's the best I can do In the day, we will bake our breadAt night, ha, we will break our bed!Four nights out of seven, I will be with you

Please Take

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I have a ball-pein hammer in my coat pocket.

Bootsy Goes on a Bender

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Bootsy awoke with a hangover that only brain surgery could cure, a hangover that caused a seam to open in the known universe, leaving Bootsy on one side while all other matter sped away, away.

The Sin Eater

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Priests didn’t just disappear, not without a reason, so there hadn’t been any doubt when Merrick was suddenly replaced. No one had said it, but they didn’t have to. And her boys, thank God—at least he’d done nothing to them.

The Audition

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My music teacher, Luigi Biagi, told me that he was done with me. He said it was time I moved on to more specialized teachers. Since my passion was composing and arranging, he recommended Al Fine.

Graduation

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and i'm almost out of cigarettes, and fireworks and sorority girls scream from down the street.

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?

An Unlikely Rapture

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Chills begin on my hand where his cool lips meet my skin and ripple through me. I try to focus on the road and cock my eyebrow. “Not bad for a 15-year-old.”

From The Chronicles of His Demise

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I am not the wind./ I am a stone eroded by the wind

When the Moon Blooms

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Your faded presence in sepia dream returns, firelight whispers and vanilla scented ash. We were a beautiful knot: sinew and hemp, burlap and magnolia petal, concrete and vapor. Gray kisses hovered overhead, misty…

Jonesy's Rhino

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After Jonesy entered the bear habitat, he walked up to the biggest bear in the group and punched it square in the nose. The bear was visibly startled. I mean, bears don’t get punched that often. And there’s a reason: bears are ferocious animals.

Zorks

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The way things are looking, we haven't got long on this earth. The whole human race is in trouble. And forget global warming, the ground wars all over, the death of the oceans, Pat Robertson, that shit. Those are annoyances,…

Leda and the Swan: Paul Gauguin

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Leda looks back over her shoulder at us as the swan grips her from behind while at the same time nipping at the nape of her neck. She's a freckled child and a little frightened. There's a dark smudge beneath her eye where the shadow runs. The swan

13 fragments of a somniloquy, overheard by a burglar lost in the basement complex on midsummer night

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1. there's nothing more to say about it and I don't want to be drawn2. beautiful she couldn't hear me anyway I was desperate and there were moths3. they'd replaced his head with a picture of the moon he looked4. none of them were speaking English more like a ticking a…

77 Words About Saturday

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Another Saturday in April. Another set of scars.

Courtly Love, a tail

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They're bound to wonder what sort of offspring we'll hatch. We've done the tests, we are cross-fertile.

SHAME

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My people rested naked sandwiches on the arms of chairs, and always had an open saucer with half melted butter, a block of Velveeta cheese in the freezer, an open rice cooker.

Spoiled Meatloaf

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In a small, cozy diner lived a homemade meatloaf. The meatloaf spent its days lounging on a warm plate with some mashed potatoes and sweet corn. Together they watched television, argued about sports, and ate blueberry pie...

The Meaning of Life

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One must not confuse the meaning / of life with the joy of living