Most read stories

Burnab

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Lise started making up words when she lost her voice.

Three Micros

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The earth moves.

snatch 4

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...fingers...

That's all, folks...

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I’m supposed to be writing poems but it’s Saturday morning and I’m watching cartoons.

Frances at Virginia Beach

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My husband waits for him to hurt himself. The boy drinks red wine between movements, Staring hypnotically at the back Of a girl’s head.

TWO STEPS

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It turns out I know a thing or two about momentum. I know, I know. Like the crescendo of your bicycle wheels. Like the force the florist put on the stems the day Linda died. The way my fingers spin between planetary mass. This is how I know I’m not real

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

Nothing to laugh at, at all.

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The house had to be clean - I mean thorough-clean - when he got home from the pit for his tea, or he’d throw his plate at the wall and the gravy would run down onto the carpet. There was always gravy.

One of Us

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“We’re starting to get into weather control,” Mark said. “Can you really do that?” Rachel asked, trying to sound supportive and not skeptical. “There are people out on the west coast in Seattle, who’ve been experimenting with it,” Mark said. “Bec

Bukowski

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that guy/ MOSTLY understood / endings

Black Eyes, Blue Tears, and Dark Thoughts

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At five a family relative took my life away from me and no one cared

When the Well Runs Dry

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and the moon shines on like a silver dollar and coyotes in the desert scream and holler

Undercover With the Weird Religious Divorce Rules Unit

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An undercover agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish woman in a sting operation that led to the arrest of two rabbis for kidnapping men who refused to grant divorces to their wives.

Rowdy

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Flash’s hackles stood brushlike but he kept his head bowed just enough beneath the bigger dog’s stare to delay the inevitable fight. Flash, Mal thought approvingly, would pick the time and place.

The Seer

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The strange bones of language wander the room.

My dark job history

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Sometime in the late 60s when I was thirteen I had this paper route for the San Mateo Times.

Robert, The Architect

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Robert Townsend had planned his suicide for ten years, and on July 10th, 2010 he took a long, hot shower to set the mood.

Pretending Veracity, History Winks

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Mosaics are a trick of the eye, seeming

a nice girl is like powder

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I remember mad strong words out of a teenager, fresh from the shower without a blouse: First! He will be my age, period! He will be the first to walk me to my room as my fear crashes to earth, final, considered. And I will be the first to milk the w

Texas Weather

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I know this: the sky is vast here// and the sun unforgiving/ to any architecture not the best

An association game with the word 'guilt' (or how (not) to die inside)

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The past operates with incredible gravity. Powerful, efficient, deceptive. Thin, sleek cords sent out by it attach themselves to your back, your legs, your buttocks, the back of your head. Resist. Walk. One leg after another. Easy does it, like a baby. Do

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

In Small Packages

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Linus had it right with the security blanket he held like a beloved pet swan. Geneva had it all wrong with a pastel-colored music box, painted with impressionist-styled daisies and tied up in gold-ribbed pink bow. But it had come from her grandmother. Her

The Judas Horse

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Mark dressed the velvet red Stetson, too big for his head, like a dandy. A six year old savior with fringe on his pockets flapping as he, the ‘Judas horse’ led me ’round back

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.

Sleepy Time for Jimmy

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Now comfy is as comfy does, but when sleeping strange, please accept a wide range of cradle, crib, cave.

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,…

Paying for Dinner at a French Restaurant So You Will Love Me

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What does she have / that I don’t have / that I can’t buy / for myself?

Little Women

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

Concubine on the Ginza Line

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so I tighten hands with my castaway and say/you failed to impress in your folded peacock dress