1629 25 20
|
I read my book of names. Over and over again. Our name appeared in the newspaper 254,991 times between 1896 and 1944.
|
162910
|
[He] practiced aromatherapy and licentiousness, in no particular order.
|
162964
|
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…
|
1629107
|
I threw my hand / at the gearshift/
the car glided off.
|
16291715
|
I'm a lot wiser now but so what?
|
1629112
|
Although radiation and chemo rendered him a wraith...
|
1629113
|
In May of 1982, my daughter and I planned a trip…
|
16281212
|
|
162885
|
When the malady struck and the world fell dark at noon, she and I groped the walls and found our front door. Outside, bewildered, we heard the whine of jets in free-fall, explosions in the imagined distance. And we heard a car — or was it a truck that veered…
|
1628158
|
Mostly, though, reiteration of the old/
in an idiosyncrasy that strives/
to become fresh and fails
|
162800
|
It seemed like only yesterday that she was making sure to remember bottles for Hunter and now he was eating regular adult food, and they were looking into tutors for next year, and Hunter was nearly four. Her runty Hunty umpkins was going to be four.
|
162842
|
Mama sleeps in bed with us. The blue of her ghost sleeps underneath me. I love her more than anything. What does she think when we are naked, when we yell, or mimic, imbibe, curse, cry, shake, make love, roll over on her, want to die?
|
162853
|
Smoking is like hooking up with an ex-girlfriend: you know she's bad for you and that it won't work out, but it feels so familiar and comfortable and so easy to slide back into.
|
162800
|
And the ocean was black and green and blue—as your dress that clung to your body’s curve. Round as the bend of the water trailing the false line of the shore.
|
162823
|
["Mea Culpa" means: I don't care what you think, sorry is when I feel like making you hear me say it.]
|
162831
|
Dark hung over the night like an occupation force. Across the street a Cuban diner fought it off with green and yellow neon lights, Latin rhythm beating through the air.
|
162774
|
not that we ever had before
|
1627102
|
I had no portent this would occur, /
Ne'er did I see this happening, /
Not days before, nor those coming;
|
16271310
|
Fortunately, when the bird hits the sliding glass doors in our den, I know what to do.
|
162762
|
"What the fuck are you looking at, Carl?" She snaps, turning her head toward me as the truck edges off the road and into a field of tobacco, into those broad green leaves of ancient sacristy and modern ablution. This is not a blissful kind of field. It is not full…
|
162774
|
My mother's afraid the dog will drown. It's raining and our street is flooding and the dog is standing on top of his doghouse. My mother is pregnant. I can stand beneath her stomach and not even see her face. I watch her from the kitchen window. She's shoeless. She holds…
|
162798
|
You were always goingto connect the dots. I was always goingto overfill a bucketwith poems. You wouldeventually drive off wavingyour hand like astar on a spring. I'dshoulder up another notebookfor the walk. Myhand would rather holda pencil. Yours wouldaccept a kiss…
|
162743
|
After dinner, I looked forward to taking a shower and cleansing myself of the day’s mishap. Cher had other plans.As I left the bathroom, Cher nipped me in the butt, taking my towel, skin, and blood with her. I remember writhing on the floor outside my sis
|
162700
|
“He's the one who took five tries to find your vein during your last blood draw, right?” This question spilled from the row of twenty EKG machines that now made up the hospital building's larynx
|
162787
|
|
16262011
|
The suite of dark rooms/
extends forever./
It’s no big deal.
|
162620
|
I was thinking everything was OK, until one day I woke up and realized that I was living on an entirely different planet, and you seemed like a complete stranger to me. I was feeling so ashamed of these feelings, that I couldn't even tell you about them. I couldn't…
|
162632
|
“You know who Neil Peart looks like?” Gram said, ignoring Aaron's outburst.
|
162652
|
We lay in what we have made, minute fleshy bullets in the target we have made.
|
162633
|
The next thing we knew, the KGB started tailing us everywhere we went. They must have heard about Lenin’s Paintings, was all we could figure. Because, what if they were real?
That night we went out to a pizza place where we saw the worst graffiti in t
|
