1665 7 6
|
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…
|
16652311
|
Every Monday you brought your Sunday finest to the bus stop...
|
166510
|
I was shooting baskets in the driveway when the Mexican kid delivered the groceries. He drove in fast and loud . . .
|
166567
|
Except where its waves break gently,/
white frothed and reassuring along the shore,
|
166500
|
You’re never really asleep. I am never awake. But as the darkness fades, I read. Your body tells my story.
|
166543
|
|
166585
|
collars of obedience /
discarded in the pyre /
with draft cards and bras
|
166544
|
I imagine diving into a vat of dried fruit, enjoying the unmistakable sweetness in each shriveled morsel, until I find myself biting into an undetected metal shard.
|
166443
|
Except for the bathroom stalls—you know the one that goes “Here I sit all broken-hearted”—the only poetry in the house is composed by Hazel, recited to her fawning sycophants.
|
166411
|
Roanne hungered. Memory had ruled her forever. Shards really, edged like machetes: daddy, whose fingers had eyes in the dark. Momma, ensconced in the shadows. Inside the church, those pairs of short…
|
166400
|
Tadd Dameron once described himself as “the most misplaced musician in the business,” and one needn’t call the missing persons bureau to determine that he may have been right.
|
16641414
|
I realize the kid is still smoking. Shocked, I tear the cigarette from his mouth, throw it to the earth, and grind it to death with the heel of my boot.
|
166433
|
A small bar of glycerin soap floated in the sink full of bloody water . . .
|
166465
|
When I first started out in my working career, I made it the habit of obtaining jobs with companies that were about to go under. (I wrote more books while on unemployment than by any other method.) I was a real bloodhound at sniffing out the pre-dawn od
|
166464
|
We bobbed and weaved using our words like the sniffs of two unfamiliar dogs in a Wal-mart parking lot. Wary, but sensing we could be more than just polite neighbors, once we got past the normal darkness of strangers. There was no plot to our story yet, but we both seemed to…
|
166411
|
“We know you’re in there, motherfucker. Step out, slowly, and we might keep you fit for an open casket funeral."
|
166343
|
The print is not ideal, it's true.
|
1663178
|
When I was young and self-born in religion my aunts, uninterested in being washed in the Blood of Christ, called me Preacher Boy. I didn't pay them any attention. It was fine by me, I said, if they wanted to sit around and paint their toenails . . .
|
16631510
|
No jagged bits of crust were thrust up/
through the prairie’s black gumbo/
to give us cataclysmic mountain views.
|
166300
|
Everybody knew Billy Miller. He had messy hair and crooked teeth that he hid behind a thin-lipped smile. He and his friend Jimmy Rodgers, who everyone called Cock on account of his red hair that stuck up like a comb, were inseparable. They liked to ste
|
166342
|
Although badly educated, and although the Michoacána fought to deny it, she held the complex notion that borders are not abrupt lines, simple artifacts of geography and cartography.
|
166333
|
You compare the brightly-colored wires sprouting from the bandage wrapped around your stepson's head to a bouquet of flowers. The tech sits in a chair next to Brett's hospital bed and holds up line drawings of common objects: cats, boats, skyscrapers,…
|
166363
|
It was only a dream. No one died, nor were they even harmed. So horrifying!
|
166300
|
Jumping from roof to roof, Keiko and Rumiko remained quiet after hearing Mayumi’s story. They saw the shrine ahead but they knew they were going to run out of buildings to stay above.
|
166395
|
My body feels chilly but it's not from the outside temps. It seems to me it's the opposite of a fever.
|
166331
|
"I have a prehensile tongue," he said matter-of-factly. "I know how to make you feel good." Such confidence, I say. Prove it.We're sitting on the couch, watching a movie, but not paying attention to it. We sit side-by-side, my leaning into him, and his arm is around me,…
|
16631210
|
My little friend is no bigger than a minute. An even five feet tall, if that.
|
166300
|
THE LAST THING I WANTED, expected, or needed was to be standing in the doorway of Carly Ray's room, watching her clutch a picture of her father, my old friend Beryl, up to her face. She is so tiny, but at the same time there is something very adult about the way she looks.…
|
166320
|
And now, the weather. The Cloud Wranglers have roped three solid clouds this morning, preventing the clouds from raining iron bars onto Human Brain Storage Center #17.
|
166300
|
I was awakened by a disturbing dream. He was no longer with me and I felt afraid. Everything was cloudy, almost blurry. I couldn't see much in front of me, but I knew for sure he wasn't there with me. Then he said the words I feared the most “I don't love you.…
|
