Most read stories

Air Conditioning Bill

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The last night, I shivered in bed until three a.m., the blankets wouldn’t work, or the socks, or my tears, but I reassured my heart that my next love would be warmer. 
He was. 
And our air conditioning bill was so high we could’t afford it.

Self Pity

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The army was bulldozing grandmother's house.

The Painter, the Actor, the Piano Player

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1.As fast as that I wake to astonishing desire. I'd met you at my parents' house just the weekend before but for them (them the drained students trying to relax, refill before their afternoon sessions) you are the stranger in the room,…

Moon Talk

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moonbeams unrecognized language steadies my course

John Doe's Jeans

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In the panic following news of my motorcycle crash, my honey fled the house without coat or wallet, and now, nearly midnight, we don’t even have cab fare home.

The First Day of Summer

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It is the first day of summer, a blue-green afternoon, and we sit beneath the English oak, Quercus robur. Everything has at least two names. It is the first day of summer, or the last day of something else.

Queen

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Normally, Aidan looked like a guy. A highly feminine guy, but still a guy. He wore his hair in a buzz cut (a turn on of mine), wore tight clothes, worked out so he had a bit of muscle, but nothing over the top. And he was my guy.

Baby Catalogue

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my mouth is open, ready to bite your tiny toes

Sparks Beneath the Surface

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If I should wake/ before I die,/ just shoot me through/ the one good eye.

chicken coup

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" I have no idea what's goin on out here, and I'm gonna find out one way or another."

Cooperman

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Unconsciously she shook her head at her own weakness in coming out to see Wayne when things were in shambles at home. Guilt had beat resolve in the cosmic game of rock paper scissors.

Small Snow Haiku.

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A small snow.

Flop-Flip

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Little stuff at first: mistaking their dog for a cat, attempting to start the car with a bar of soap, or using a newspaper to dry the dishes. Lately, he’d been slipping: calling her by his mother’s name during sex, berating his boss for lackluster profit

Surveil

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“I want you to know that you are being watched,” Ernie said. “I have trained a camera on your work station.”

Rocket

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The rocket shone in the distance. Cape Canaveral had never looked so pretty.

If I Were a Chemist, Not Now, but Maybe In The 1920s

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She said, “I think I’m pregnant,” but I thought that the sidewalk looked cleaner than usual,

"The Misses Moses," from my collection Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives (Norton 2010)

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The Misses Moses by Brad Watson from Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives The Moses sisters lived together, alone, in the fine old brick house near downtown where they…

Impetuous Daffodils

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...the daffodils will fling/ their yellow petals, taunting winter

Greet Death

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where are you now?

The Tourists

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They acquire him in a bar that is famous for its shipwrecks.

Food & Treasure

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She wakes up with rosemary.

21st Century Living

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there should be a word for it.

Police And Thieves

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Chapter one I was sitting in the doctor's office. For weeks, my nerves had been on edge, and I had been feeling like he was going to have a nervous breakdown. I needed the help of a professional. It was hard for me to admit this. I was taught that a man handled…

Echoes

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...Heroin. It helped them get through the tricks and sucked up their flesh.

more horrid haiku

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a mere forty years/and maybe you become twelve,/maybe sixty-three.

The Search

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“Sixty-seven responses!” Al Edelstein announces at the first meeting of the search committee. It has been just two weeks since Rabbi Feldman dropped dead of a heart attack and just a week since the congregation ran the ad: “Help Wanted: Orthodox Rabbi. Im

Early Tuesday Morning

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The moon hung in the sky, round and pale, under cover of some wispy clouds.

A Christmas Story

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I pay for 3 Trump Troll Dolls and a package red licorice twizzlers and head back toward the door. Dancing Gnome Girl is there to greet me. I stick a twizzler in the teeth of the donation pail.

The Kept Man

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If the Titanic rises from the bottom of the sea, I will meet you on deck, in a deck chair. Fully dressed for a change.

The Concord of This Discord

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-Love is a rushing of blood