Most read stories

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…

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?

The Edge of the World

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I am far from home, wherever that is.

Last Visit to the Toy Store

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The two walked around, taking in all the classics: the imported Russian matryoshka dolls of varying styles and bright colors; spinning tops, red Radio Flyer wagons, kaleidoscopes, and wooden yo-yo's invoked memories of Christmases past. The hand-stitched

Out the Window

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she lifted and threw her legs out the open side front window of the speeding auto

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

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.

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.

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…

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.

Life on TV

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The television volume softens in the shadows.

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.

gravelortian part 23

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Can't believe I was able to drive this far

Snatch 9 (there's been a time lapse)

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Blocks context...

Ten Dreams That Raised Some Of the Dead

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Dreams will show you a life that might or might not be yours, but you better believe that they've got to serve when you're asked to come up with a story."--Frank Baron, the night he made bail and left town1. First Blood in Dreams Long Ago The…

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

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.

Temporary Housing

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My cats are my world and more. They are rotund, little indoor-girl cats, though, who were taken from their mother too early to learn things like hunting and properly washing their privates, and so they think the mouse is just another interesting thing to

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

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

Spiced Nuts

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There are lines// across time, beyond the tug/ of elections and fashion,/ beyond the turbulence of history

Flood

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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…

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

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…

Truth

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…assume...