1611 9 3
|
Where I work people use words like leverage. They do not appear to denote anything.
|
161163
|
My fingers are shining
in the underwater afterlife of memory
searching for the nipple-sized mollusks
searching for the solid nature of things
left over from having lived a life
at all
That new rain smell, specifically
I remember that,
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161164
|
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! …
|
1610148
|
And she's dying like someone who's tried living and failed.
|
161096
|
Some nights you really feel it.
|
1610103
|
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.
|
16101611
|
|
161064
|
We need to keep writing
because the great ones
aren’t always that great
We need to keep writing
to insure that the future
even has a future
We need to keep writing
because the wind won’t know how
or when to listen if we don’t
|
161055
|
. . . did you notice yesterday afternoon how for an entire quarter hour five o’clock itself looked for a few minutes as if it would never arrive?
|
161053
|
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…
|
161000
|
You can’t start living in The Netherlands just like that; you need to be registered first. Once an official has confirmed you’re the person you claim to be, you can start in a job. Once an employer has confirmed you’re employed, you can apply for yo
|
16102111
|
Guys on safari wearing safari jackets shoot things all day, things with funny names …
|
16101911
|
Today the isobars are far apart.
|
160922
|
I've never really been impressed with authors that write long teary-eyed novels about people dying of terrible diseases or uplifting stories about the armless boy who made the wrestling team.
|
160910
|
It’s the small stuff. Always. A conversation with a stranger, brief yet so connected it overwhelms you. These encounters can move me beyond my reality, little reminders that, if you just crack the window a little, something very special can blow in.
|
160935
|
I was sitting on the steps in the entryway to our apartment building taking off my running shoes when I spotted a paperclip on the floor. I assumed it had fallen from the mail that my wife had just taken from our mailbox. Once my shoes were removed, I went down to pick…
|
16092011
|
The box thuds at your feet: mug, plant, wedding photo, the 25-year pen.
|
160921
|
The chipping sound started around the time Susannah reached puberty. Not all at once, it was just now and then at first.“What's that noise?” she'd say, and everyone would cock their heads to listen. Her mother eventually took her to the doctor. He said it…
|
1609112
|
Although radiation and chemo rendered him a wraith...
|
16091410
|
When we take Vengeance,/
shave and shower him,/
deodorize and scent him,/
clothe him in a starched shirt
|
1609107
|
I reached for that hair and the air zagged white...
|
160975
|
—You must be joking, he laughed.
|
160998
|
. . . catching her breath somewhere between ecstasy and surprise. . .
|
16091817
|
Johan was telling stories about the occupation. The Germans were stupid, he said.
|
1608119
|
My wife is making lunch. I suggest leftover pizza. We are going over to the neighbor’s house for pizza tonight, my wife says. I tell her that’s okay. I like pizza.
|
160810
|
[He] practiced aromatherapy and licentiousness, in no particular order.
|
160864
|
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…
|
1608109
|
Strike me down hard, bolt of pure blue, laser focus square, blast of hydrogen nuclear, knock me on the keister, blind me down, oh Lordy Lord Lord.
|
16081211
|
Bag worms hang in their cloudy white hammocks. This is the month of webs when long-bodied yellow and black spiders sign their autographs.
|
160820
|
...to know something people around you don’t know can put you outside of them. And then you can’t get back in...
|
