Most read stories

The Yellow Room

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...the knives she laid out on the porch before her husband left her, washed and dried, set neatly by copper pennies.

The Good Old Days

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What she didn't tell me was that her brother Carl got fried during an electrical storm.

Song of the Needle

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The Black Thing spread over the room, eating away his mother's face as well as the doctors and nurses who dashed in a frenzy around him until they too were swallowed in the black singing cloud.

Curry

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I looked around in my pantry but there were no sentences I felt like cooking.

Waiting for the Voice on the Line

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hoping for a happy outcome/ like a kindly voice on the line

Three Micros

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The earth moves.

blanck (1?)

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① / empty space / not black / not white / not noise / blanck

A Diminishing Verse on Diminishing Returns

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My banker said, "We've millions we can spare,

Victor Krowchuck Gets Dressed

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He puts on a choir of prepositions, 142 adjectives, 317 ramifications of cotton... and 177 semicolons engorged with cabbage.

the difference between child-dread and grown-up-dread is the paycheck keeps the tears away

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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.

Off the Map

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It's difficult to remember, much less write down, the hard times you thought were unforgettable when you have a full stomach. It's hard to remember that dirty little room you rented in that house, from a Bosnian landlord, on 27th avenue and Missouri. The…

Portrait of a Sunday Afternoon

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Your grandmother has gotten old, in that way where one day you wake up, and you realize that someone you've been looking at your whole life suddenly looks different. That hands which used to gently place band-aids on scraped knees are…

Blind

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My mother saw the Devil everywhere, even in my dance teacher, with his black leotards and chest hair like bean sprouts. "You're flamingos," he'd say in class when we balanced on one foot; when we lept into the air, "Now you're panthers!" I pictured him in a dark robe,…

Victoria Gate

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Maybe she was crying before she got on the coach at Marble Arch, settled in the seat across from me, but by the time we reach Victoria Gate, tears stream down her face, mouth open to receive her own sacrament.Indian, ageless in tasteful floral, a blue sweater despite summer…

The Model

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My art teacher hated Salvador Dali.

The Agreement

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Our Irish tradition is rich in Yeats, drenched in Bushmills.

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…

The Letter

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I knew nothing about the letter at first. When I came in that morning and smiled and said good morning, it was a genuine smile and a heartfelt good morning. But the letter, which had arrived the previous afternoon, was already doing its corrosive work of

Howie Mandel

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We love the sparkling, speckless, spotless, spic-n-span, sanitary.

BABY MOUSE

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BABY MOUSE She and the baby squeeze into the neon blue star-studded rocket ship in front of K-Mart, a tight fit because the baby's still inside her and the ship is made for under ten year olds and the steering wheel dents her stomach and the baby backs up and…

Life on TV

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The television volume softens in the shadows.

Workingman

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He died in the ditch he dug.

Short Cuts

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The shop is swarming with little women.

Justice

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“Too dumb to live,” my wife said when cretins on a motorbike blasted around us nearly taking a side mirror with them.

Latté plus

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Hurried, hassling suit in front of me is being awful to the barista. So she refuses to serve him, turning away.

Dog

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I’m not the creative type like my friend Bosely, an Irish Setter. I’m a traditionalist. I like to eat exactly at 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. I take my bone with me everywhere I go. I will not carry the poop-bag.

The Shadow

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"Did I have a dream, or did the dream have me?" - Rush, "Nocturne"

Chlorine Dream

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death spoke in a swimming pool in late june:

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?

Centipede

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Five o’clock, and Madame choosing her evening legs. Elizabeth assisting. Elizabeth will continue to assist until midnight, despite the chaos, at which point the authorities will tell her such assistance is no longer necessary.