1484 9 3
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5 Narratives From The Field Museum (Naturally) 1. The American wife asked her French husband why it took him 50 words to ask which pass they would need. He said, “Because it does,” and they argued more, each in their own words. 2. The child…
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148452
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We slept beside dripping glaciers
people like us
We were never meant to be housed
contained, kept, petted, cleaned
We could only be gutted
You used us one time
and threw us out
people like us
We sprouted the wings of desire
by watchi
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148421
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He called me one Friday when I was a kid and told me he wanted to go trout fishing. He had dreamt that I was a worm or a fly -- he couldn't remember which -- but he was sure I would bring good luck to the stream. The next morning, before grandma awoke, I
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We flew./
In my dreams, I can fly.
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148454
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I said, “That bird is hungry.”
The sparrow was eying both of us
At our separate outside café tables
As it hopped around looking for crumbs.
Then it would look up at us
Expectantly.
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148444
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It was like watching one of those vintage eighteen-frames-per-second films of someone trying to open a stuck umbrella.
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148410
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Even when the sun is gone and things get dark, usually the moon comes to reflect some light of hope until a new dawn can emerge
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148444
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* Dedicated to Bernie MaddoffThere was a long line at the men's room.You know,when men reach a certain age,there is an urgencyto their frequent trips.So I saw an opportunityI said:" I know Bernie I can get you in.""Really?," they saidbut I played it coy"It ain't easyBernie…
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148474
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Food is silly. Eating is silly. Yet the camaraderie of sharing a table is not silly. It is sacred. It becomes silly when the jello arrives.
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Two summers later, the ritual began. Carol left her house at midnight, having served her husband and daughter a heavy dinner that left them caged in their sleep. She was like a thief working in reverse: she rose from bed with her husband’s first snore,
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148463
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Another bird hits the large plate glass patio doors as I am sipping my morning coffee.
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148453
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Maybe you, citizen, should be a jerk. Jerks get where they are going. You, citizen, what about you? Handy, dandy, where’s the jerk? Conformists. Sheep. All of you, all of us, boiling out our radiators. Spending our day, our days, our lives in coope
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148366
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some answers are enough to make you cry or laugh yourself to death
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1483126
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"Every generation is a new generation, isn't it? What's so different about your generation?"
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148300
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I figure maybe I’m mostly alone; they are all running down staircases or falling down fire escapes, some of them naked, some of them with towels, mostly probably naked though.
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148363
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My poems have appeared in four different publications; three have died shortly after they ran my stuff. Coincidence, or something more sinister?
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I wake up on the edge of the mattress, teetering. The dog is looking at me funny.
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148373
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In every writer's room there is a bogeyman born in the closet, growing with every blot on the virgin sheet, feeding on the pain of writing, of solitude, the failure, the rage, the confusion, the helplessness, the fear, the humiliation. The narrower the…
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148300
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At street level there is a small arrow on which is printed “Museum of Numbers” that points up a long narrow staircase. There is a restaurant on the first floor. All the way up the stairs, the air is permeated with smell of fried foods
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The days cut off by damp chill with every thought a different variety of protection.
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148299
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People usually take fonts for granted.
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148201
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I have cherished the memory of that meal since and have sought out Indian restaurants all over the world. San later told me that the best Indian food was to be had in London
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148210
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At last one of the men on the line bowed his head in a silent prayer for deliverance from what was about to come, then lifted his head and shouted loudly for his fellows to charge.
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148287
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You are an heiress to drunks.
The statues of your forefathers stagger,
memorialized by gravity, their faces
half-lit eternally, as they reach into refrigerators
for another something
to keep away the cold empty.
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That old woman's got to be senile or something. The other day she asked my daughter if I had a "thing about water." Sharon told her I didn't, but then came right in and asked me, "Mother, you got a thing about water?"
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1482106
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Her smile dazzled me from across the room.
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148230
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You see the ocean for the first time on our honeymoon. Your large feet dig deep into the muddy sands of the Maryland coastline as your blue eyes swell at the infinite water before you. I wrap my…
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A sunrise over the dark Atlantic, on a perfect beach day, tasting of salt and warmth and powdered sugar; of last, desperate kisses of youth, still shivering from delicious night, is beautiful.A sunrise over the dark ruins of Syria, on hot dusted stones, tasting of lament…
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1482136
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It wasn't so much the softness of the bed that kept her from sleep, or the pungent bleach-scent of the unfamiliar sheets, but the lack of her clock's familiar tick, tick, tick. Or was it a missing heartbeat? Awake, she watched his chest. On the table, an empty pill …
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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.
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