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Her mouth was sour; her forehead was still damp with perspiration. She leaned against the bathroom wall and noted her complexion had gone pale. She wanted to slide down the wall and rest until she felt steadier, but…
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175620
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There's this sepia-toned photograph, which my mother gave me, of my brother and me when we were still both youngsters. In the picture my brother's dressed in a skimpy checked suit whose sleeves were already too short for him — on its way to becoming my
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17562210
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Let’s play a game. I’m thinking of a word.
Do we have to?
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175610
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Lu peeked at his cards again. They were still jacks, and they still looked mighty nice.
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175633
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He was a sushi chef, and he would spend hours in their kitchen practicing his knife skills, and the speed with which he can put that there and this in that and so on; and she would see him on the floor most mornings, still wearing that dirty, tattered ban
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175654
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Quail looked up at her. Unsmiling, challenging.
Lemme just go wash my hands, he said.
She closed the door, bolted it. You won’t need your hands.
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175653
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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.
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175696
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I cannot begin to list all the ways this conversation can go downhill from here, so I hang up the phone quietly.
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17561213
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The mulch vendor is a crook but we have no choice, not with the shortage of soil. Have to guard the stuff, put alarm wires around the garden, leave a friend in charge to spot the thieves if you go away overnight. If you…
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175511
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[CAUTION: IF YOU ARE UNDULY "FIXATED" ON GOD, AMERICA, MOM, APPLE PIE, AND/OR BASEBALL ... YOU MAY WANT TO AVERT YOUR EYES!]
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175521
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‘Miguel! A pint of Guinness, please!'
I might as well have asked for his mother's immortal soul. A smile as benign as a stiletto. But he served a clean and tidy pint.
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175520
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His velvet mouth, shaped perfectly to intertwine with hers, teases the space between them until its caress finds her.
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175532
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You are walking through a canyon made of shelving units lined with colorful masterpieces of three-dimensional minimalist design
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175500
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I blinked the darkness out of my eyes and saw the man again; I could smell his breath. Just like dad’s. I must have fallen asleep. My eyes felt so heavy. I was cold. Why was I cold?
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175510
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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
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175564
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the first day of preschool/ my mother walked me down the street/ to a tall building that cut/ like a knife made of bricks/ right into the street,/ an american flag/ sticking straight out/ just above the door.
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175531
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175422
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I remember thinking the seasons are arriving later every year,
as if the world has been slowed by the weight of graves.
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175482
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Entering that darkroom is like slipping through the barrel of a rifle.
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175496
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I have always admired flat-chested women.
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175443
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He’d tossed and turned all night, pondering what to do, afraid she was living alone. He’d decided to email her two words: “Love you” and signed it “Scary Sal,” as she’d always seemed so afraid of him.
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175485
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I didn’t question any of it and instead sat motionless as she dropped my wrists and walked away seconds later.
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175400
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The museum’s catalog description changed much less than the painting over those years. He wasn’t curator-in-chief of catalog descriptions, however, that task went to a curator arriving by another door.
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175400
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Everyone else in the bar was looking everywhere else: it was as though they were alone while Journey played loudly all around. “Streetlights, people,” she sang. Time didn't move. What she must be like while driving, singing to herself with the windows fog
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1754184
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Why is the sky grey he asked meI don't know, I saysudden flashes of light snowbloat the cloudssea gulls are squawkingexpect them to peck at my headI have nothing to feed them
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175475
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The man and the lady loved to laugh. She would tuck her hair back and lay her head on his stomach after dinner while watching old scary movies on Thursday nights. She would listen to his stomach digest the food and laugh then, he would laugh and…
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175410
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My only celebrity anecdote involves seeing Barbara Bush in the back of the Presidential limo ...
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175420
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Last night aliens invaded our dishwasher.
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17531813
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Taken by agents of the United States of America, Felix Six-Killer grows up at the Carlisle Indian School near Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. His hair is cut and oiled. His shirts are starched and creased. For months he is startled to find himself seated for…
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175352
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We lay in what we have made, minute fleshy bullets in the target we have made.
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