Most read stories

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

Faithless

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She was now sitting in her bathtub. The warmth of the water made her pale, rich vanilla skin flushed with the fullness of circulation as her pores continued to allow the passage of her toxins from her system.

Let’s Make a Landscape

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Viewed correctly, nature is an inexhaustible storehouse of clichés. A successful landscape is their pleasing rearrangement.

The Good Farmer

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He leans in close then, close enough that when he speaks, his words tiptoe out and tuck me in.

Inconstant Nature

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I think for a second that I should have called my husband out to witness this thing, but I am instantly made aware of why I have not.

thumbing through the Jesus book

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We’re on our way out, my brother and me, to the grave­yard.

Stranded

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They come to mind/ like ice flowers/ on the small panes

Metastasis

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I am eternal/ as long as the power holds

Longshot Down Undah

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He said stuff like ‘Crikey that's a knife',” she said, “it was bad, really really bad.”

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…

secrets

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

Our Terror Closet

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"Honey," I called out to my wife. "Why do we have Spam in the closet?" "You mean unsolicited bulk messages sent electronically?" "No--the canned, precooked meat product made by the Hormel Corporation."

Wild Dreams of Reality, 12

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I went out behind Parker's house and saw Darrell's tent set up in the grass. The flaps of the pup tent were open. I could see him through the mosquito netting. He had a Coleman lamp burning and lay on his back in his underwear on top of his sleeping bag.

Why No One Writes Epics Anymore

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No one writes epics anymore. Why? Perhaps it's because we no longer share mythologies. Once there was a shepherd, and now there is a Google bus loaded with pricks. Yes, you say, but they are good at math. Each and every one of them. And this is true. I envy them…

The Meaning of Life

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

WRECKED

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There

Badface Investigates - Being Naked

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I'm completely naked in an unheated basement, about 40 first year university students, most of them female, are staring at my ridiculous waif-like body.

Three Prayers for Rain

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Still no rain. Eight months, says Hollister. More like nine, says James Earl. We stand in Hollister’s high meadow, what’s left of it.

Thin Flame

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It was impossible that you wouldn't love me

Key West with Poo and Company

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Excerpt from Flamingo …

Crack Pot Bear Chili

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Hunters took 925 bears in the 2020 season in Vermont

Hart Crane Pantoum No. 1

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One must be drenched in words.

Our Graves

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But no matter how we died, we all end up here, in the Meadowlark Children's Cemetery.

Boy Meets Girl

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Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. It was an unexpected meeting, but one that was sure to bring a lot of change for both. They met at a work event. Some friends wanted to put together a company and they had both been invited to be part of the project. Boy smiled. Girl remained…

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…

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.

Removals

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Her mother was worried.

The Beast Remembers Its Broken Promise and Starts to Cry

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It's a good thing too—because Of the way that feeling Made her even more beautiful than usual. You shouldn't doubt such an obvious Feeling. It's a good thing— Because frankly you have Been informed before. When Beauty …

If a Gun is Introduced, it Must Eventually Fire

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His note said: “I’m sick of low attendance.”

Questions Dog First Pooch's Kennel Papers

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The White House released only a short-form pedigree certificate, which “breeders” claim bears signs of alteration. “The ‘K’ in the middle of ‘AKC’ is longer than the other letters, like an El Greco on an acid trip.”