Most read stories

Word Fish

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Looking with his ears, Hearing with his eyes, Not really mute, he simply didn't know how to speak.One word, then another string together,a crack spreads across an ice covered lake. Now there is an open channel, and his thoughts roil the…

Madness

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I read my book of names. Over and over again. Our name appeared in the newspaper 254,991 times between 1896 and 1944.

Zeus Takes a Day Job

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That's demeaning enough, but not as hard to take as the customers. They're all jaded hipsters, thumb diddling smartphone freaks, pretending their online interactions actually count as relationships and that “tweets” are real conversations. It's sad, reall

Written Six Weeks Before

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March 16, 2006 My mail, e-mail, and phone calls go from the ridiculous to the sublime. Apologies for the cliché, but I can't resist its perfect applicability: In my mailbox today yet another catalogue of boob jobs in bikinis and an invitation to explore…

Devoured Worship

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This wasn't going to be about her anymore.She tied her strong purple balloon to the neck of the wounded horse. Her skirt and her top felt like armor's breath. The tingle across her scalp felt warm. Small rug scrapes that made her think of her last dog, before she died.This…

River Run

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yearning amid the waning

Literally Choose Your Own Adventure

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You enter the lobby of the office building tentatively at first - you're a little nervous about this interview, after all - but you recall how spectacular and professional you dressed that morning. Plus you read through the company's LinkedIn profile at least five times…

The Troupe

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A performance is a series of situations. Each situation defines the characters that are in it.

The Grave of Rimbaud

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I visited the grave of Rimbaud. / It was pale blue

Regarding Viet Nam

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At some point, my lottery number/ was in the mid 300s. I was safe/ for whatever reason. No need/ to burn my draft card.

blink

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far from this time

Everyone Else's Business

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"We all knew that the thirty-eight year old mother, with the house on the hill, was having an affair with Darren, a fifteen year old boy, but no one did anything about it. When he was sixteen the parents found out and were furious, but the police were ne

Crescent City, Spring '97

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It takes almost an hour before I drift to sleep on the bus. When I wake up in Crescent City, I’m surprised. Maybe I was going somewhere else in my sleep. Walking out of the station, it feels like a strange place. Somewhere I’ve never been before. The

Children's Time

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During what's called "Children's time," one day at church Sarah slides her left foot halfway out of her tiny ballet slipper to show Davie her toenails are painted the same soft pink as the inside of her shoe. "Look," she says. "My…

Home Health Care

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But what if it grew into a nasty tea party-ish bimbo right winger -- a little Michelle Bachmann nubbin?

Don't Mangle the Mongol

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Back in the Dark Ages, the Mongols invented the first hamburger pattie. They put slabs of beef under their horses' saddles and after a few miles of rough riding -- voila! a flattened piece of cow meat. They then proceeded t

snatch 4

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...fingers...

Mobile

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They stand together in the doorway looking at the crib.

Small Budget Poems

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Toxins make a body happy/ as if acceleration toward// an end of consciousness/ is its own reward.

Wet Work

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blinking out

Why won't you lie?

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And out on that lake that day you yelled “desperation please!” And I heard “desperate pleas?” I wondered about first impressions.

Micro Trilogy

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I start with a morsel of truth, then hide it with lies...

Leaky Pipes

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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…

Anniversary Waltz

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He hiked the hills of her condition She biked the path of his delight

Protection

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You're a good dog, she whispered to him, a good brave dog. Her face was tight with soap.

Little Women

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The place is buzzing with little women, all clad in black smocks.

Death

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fate is an illusion we use to ease the terror of our mortality

Norm Never Says

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He was supposed to be a garden gnome. Give pause to the squirrels, keep an eye on the impatiums. We found him at Wegman’s. He looked hopeful and observant.

Starry Night

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I invited Van Gogh over for some drinks and a chat. I'm talking about Vincent.

The Edge of the World

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I am far from home, wherever that is.