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Midnight Mass

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Mom wraps a bulky-knit scarf around my face and over my mouth. She tightens it into a big knot in back of my collar.

The Poetry of Wallace Stevens' Secretary

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What in the name of God’s green earth does this say? “Chifferobe if you can of Aztec in coffee can”?

Sometimes the bear eats you...

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...something darkly malevolent looming above him...

gravelortian part 23

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Can't believe I was able to drive this far

Daddy's Teeth

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At night, I wake up, and Daddy's in the bathroom with a hanger in his mouth....

Breath of Fresh Air

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He lost his patience and began ranting and raving, angry that he had to come home every night and feel like he was being smothered by a pillow. “I can’t make it stop,” she said. “I can’t make myself stop feeling this way.”

Cow

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“He looks funny again,” the twins would say. “Cow looks funny, Mummy.”

Rwanda Suite: The Congo in Me

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I scratch a red welt onto the inside of my white knee. The knee itches like crazy. Pain too, down to my bones. The Congo calls.

Believing Everything I Read In Your Upturned Eyes

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It doesn't have to be force grown betweenus. We entwine naturally. It's agood feeling to have a friend who at oncedoesn't require a hothouse ceiling laidbetween each invisible touch. There's justwind. There's just rain. There's just sun. There's just you.There's just…

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…

Waiting for the Voice on the Line

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

The Edge of the World

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I am far from home, wherever that is.

Mobile

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They stand together in the doorway looking at the crib.

The Secret

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It was always your body that told so much -- lips working some secret out

Landing

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She’s witnessed her mother’s terror on the day of the hurricane, and she demanded for the first time in her life that her mother do something her mother did not want to do.

Of the smokers I’ve kissed

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The man next to me on the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto makes me think of the smokers I’ve kissed.

Night and the spell that gave me peace

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When you have lived with pain so long, you grow old and the old man inside of you takes over. That’s just the way it is.

Mourning

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It was a phone call we never expected. You were so full of life and joy and the sound of your laugh was pierced in our minds. Two strokes. That's what they said. No explanation, no back story. We worried we would lose you. Immediately, all of our memories with you started…

Haze

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Just like D-Ray White’s tapping still bounces off the mountains if the right person is listening, Hasil’s hoots and howls are trapped in record wax like a blood-drunk mosquito in amber.

Hail to the Pres: Celebrating Lester Young's Birthday

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At a time when jazz had its share of royalty–kings, dukes, and counts–Young was democratically elected the President by an aristocratic vote of one; the best jazz singer alive, his sometime lover Billie Holiday.

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…

blink

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far from this time

Raw Meat

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I took Annie to the zoo, and the tigers got out. The little tigers, that is. Cubs. Two of them. The zoo employees scurried about, peeking into nooks and crannies.

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.

Neactains, Quay St.

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Rarely is Quay Street so clean, Monday in rain, Neactain’s ticking over with Slow jazz and crosswords, Stout and steaming anoraks.

Gogol vs. Quixote

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“We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'," said Dostoevsky. Well, sometimes, I think otherwise.

Play

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“Jerome always came to play with ideas. It was like he was already thinking about it before we started. I loved his ideas. It caused me to think about it as well. We did variations on a theme and there was always a goal. Sometimes it was to grow and deliv

SOME NIGHTS

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Some nights you really feel it.

Getting Stood Up

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"Sorry, I need to confirm the results." Sal turned to Paul. "Is it true that you got stood up?"

Two Micros

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She always wore a little smile. When she took off her robe, the class grew quiet.