1573 6 6
|
The coffin-sized pit in his basement wasn’t freshly dug.
|
157321
|
Miriam forced herself to focus on the kitchen door and on putting one foot in front of the other.
“Is everything alright?” she heard Ada ask the family.
“Of course, everything is fine,” the woman said. “What could be wrong other than the impossible serv
|
157341
|
The way she once felt for another, naked mornings in her bed, and Young Frankenstein. Sed-a-give.
|
1573106
|
Rarely is Quay Street so clean,
Monday in rain,
Neactain’s ticking over with
Slow jazz and crosswords,
Stout and steaming anoraks.
|
1572106
|
Rush had a black eye and a bucket of dirty water. Look, a baby turtle he said, like that explained everything. Yes, I did lack a turtle so thank you for disappearing for three months and returning with a goddamned turtle. His weird homecoming gift took my…
|
157276
|
Brody was standing against the wall with one hand in his hip pocket, as if he was holding a gun. The motel was set in the undergrowth of several weedy small towns, but a flashing neon sign made it impossible to miss from the road. We used it as a safe hou
|
157255
|
He ran for home, screaming for help in the silent ravine.
|
157211
|
I held at my gut and immediately regretted laughing at Frank when he pulled the pocket-knife out on me. I doubled over and fell to the floor.
"John, was a typer all this important?" Frank asked, knife in hand.
|
157222
|
I sat there, observing the city people. Frowns upon all our faces. The rain moistened my heart and journal. A blind family; a trio. They used their wands to lead the way.Their faces read joy but, most importantly, satisfaction.My envy filled the damp page.
|
157242
|
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…
|
157265
|
There’s a hole in my sock, just large enough that my big toe keeps slipping out.
|
157230
|
The others fell silent and cast glances back and forth to each other.
|
157244
|
I arrived Sunday evening to a darkened house. Everything unplugged. Even the fuses from the breaker. Meticulous, this undoing. Silence has a sound. Cold has a voice, a pearly cigarette whisper. It says, “Metaphor?”
|
157297
|
|
157276
|
I’m supposed to be writing poems but it’s Saturday morning and I’m watching cartoons.
|
15722315
|
I am long of tooth, too, and when I go, maybe a box with my ashes inside will join the boxes containing the cats’ remains.
|
1571116
|
The time has come
to scrape the wax from my menorah.
|
157144
|
And you lean forward and all of that caffeine anxiety rises up in your throat, the pressure in your jaw, a series of weights and pulleys on your teeth and at the back of your mouth. So when you open your mouth to talk, no sound is made, only the sound of
|
1571119
|
Be careful when you choose your muse,
for she may be a siren.
|
157100
|
A brief novel excerpt featuring two characters breaking out in song, with lines like 'Arabian knights dance sheikh to sheikh.'
|
157121
|
On a hot summer day in downtown San Francisco, a flasher gets more than he bargains for when the woman he flashed at a coffeehouse pulls out a gun.
|
157144
|
death spoke in a swimming pool in late june:
|
15711311
|
In the cool, damp morning, Jeremiah trembled, from the weight of the gun, from fear he would miss.
|
157121
|
Penny followed the woman into the warm, dark interior of her home, which smelled strongly of cumin and other familiar spices she couldn’t name. Penny noted that the tia’s hair had turned almost completely white and had grown very long since Penny had last
|
157184
|
I had to kill someone today. Do not be alarmed, she was only real to me.
|
1571108
|
Toxins make a body happy/
as if acceleration toward//
an end of consciousness/
is its own reward.
|
157121
|
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
|
157110
|
Now, I am getting angry! Now you want me depressed too!
GET OUT! GET OUT!
|
157151
|
...was discovered today hanging from a shower outlet in his bathroom...
|
157122
|
|
