1504 7 0
|
On the way to the drinking fountain, Elysia Martin, a third grader at St. Michael's Parochial School, heard a voice calling her name. When she turned toward the white plaster statue of the Virgin Mary that sat between twin hedges in the rose garden, she
|
150411
|
Puddles—not his real name, as you’ve probably gathered, but the kind of nickname a fat kid got tagged with in our neighborhood—kept stopping short, picking underwear out of his ass or taking a breather. This had the unfortunate byproduct of my crashing in
|
150442
|
It's 6:45 a.m. A gritty, mundane sort of magic pervades the air at "Valentine’s" in the Hamilton Hotel.
|
150454
|
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.
|
150442
|
Sparky took to me immediately. In some atavistic canine way he knew I was simpatico to a dog like him.
|
150454
|
We were wild, medieval magpies,
sweaty and sweet and selfish; and so much more
than we were before I lit that first stick of spice,
|
150400
|
I had enough judgment, anger and vengefulness from the people around me in the steel town of Pueblo, Colorado, where I was growing up. I didn’t need more from my God.
|
150400
|
Like some beautiful yet macabre puppet, she was suspended on strings of wire, painstakingly threaded tubing flowing into her cavities, through her chambers, around her mechanics.
|
1504117
|
Lucky for mama, he doesn't like for his women to work.
|
150340
|
She wakes up sad. She can't shit. She spreads out the foil. no creases. folds it in half. She puts the stuff in the crease. holds a lighter under it. A zippo. then smokes it. Well smokes the smoke. It's like kissing god or the…
|
150391
|
Naked, we stood in my shower. When she kicked my tool, I noticed she had a toe ring.
|
150300
|
I catch a glimpse of myself in the small mirror on the adjacent wall and find myself becoming shy at my own reflection, which is ludicrous in theory, shying away from oneself, but as I lock onto the few freckles I have spread neatly on both cheeks...
|
150300
|
Jaume jumped up from the bar, a wide smile across his face. He hugged his old friend and planted a kiss on his wife's cheeks. He was buzzing from the chance encounter, marveling how life had brought them together after all these years. There had to be a r
|
150310
|
“It is not your shoes the Americans complained about!” Roberto yelled, sitting behind his desk, cigar smoke curling around his purple face. “It is your UNDERWEAR!”
|
150351
|
His shirt, striped, fuzzy, is of fabric like velour and wreaks havoc with sunlight. His seat faces the aisle, I am sitting forward-faced across the aisle, we are on a half-full city bus, this afternoon.It is a funny shirt so I smile. I am not smiling because of…
|
150387
|
The first thing I saw was a sandal, but it didn't exactly look priestly. It was golden and glowing, and the foot it was strapped to had red painted nails. The straps wrapped around her ankles, and up her slender leg, tied off in a bow below the knee.
|
150332
|
|
1503172
|
You can tend to recognise the difference between a good and mediocre mind by observing how each reacts to a misfired original idea.The mediocre mind will praise the merely meretricious, but ignore the more interesting bad art. The higher mind will value the misfired…
|
150300
|
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?"
|
150362
|
“He put his stuff down—sunglasses, lotion and so forth—and I noticed there’s a little notebook that he didn’t have before.‘What’s that?’” I asked, and he said ‘Nothing.’”
|
1503278
|
She asked if I needed to be measured for size “to make sure they feel really good on you,” her lips all gloss and smile. I was nineteen and knew my size but changes in weight had caused fluctuations before so maybe I'd be different…
|
150376
|
In the blacklight of the storm, mother would tremble, spit and sway as the shutters would clatter and she would give away her balance. It was more than my heart could bear. She would always center her accusation with, “your boyfriend is a rake and a flam.” That…
|
1503118
|
None of this is real, he says, and the path slopes down to a house that is possibly haunted. One always looks in such windows, one cannot not look at the predictable detritus of another's failure, a queer satisfaction, a fairy's dust. But no, not real, none of it. And…
|
150372
|
"Penning a slight of tongue well versed
or worse, a salacious lie..."
|
150344
|
* 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…
|
150331
|
"On the podium at Pride, he owned that he'd loved taking his children to playgroup as he got to ogle all the breast-feeding mothers. "
|
1503109
|
What grabbed the mind when you heard about it was the way he did it.
|
150344
|
Perseid meteors fly past their ship like cosmic fire-wasps.
|
150300
|
Only early June, but the heat feels like August. Eleanor and Shelby sit on the front steps of the old Victorian-style house in downtown Los Angeles, drinking homemade margaritas and watching the daylight drain away to dusk. Shelby slaps a mosquito away fr
|
15031112
|
Regrets lined behind him like crossties on a railroad track.
|
