1670 3 3
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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,…
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16701011
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She left knives and hot pots with handles akimbo. Like a guardian angel, he turned them in. Like an ungrateful Eve, she turned them back out.
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167076
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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…
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167020
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She dips a toothpick in ink, running prick over paper, simply to prove herself wrong.
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167067
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Except where its waves break gently,/
white frothed and reassuring along the shore,
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167097
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I want to tell you things you do not know.
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167065
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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
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167051
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I want you closeI want to feel youinside me,softening me untilmy borders are blurredand I'm hardly breathing,my heart swellingso big itbrings me to my knees,I want to know thepain of losing youeach time youclose your eyes andgo to sleep anddream of someone else,I want to…
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167054
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...listening to the ache of errs our mouths had become.
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166921
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Naked Lady? I know that from somewhere. Then he remembered. That's what they called those old 1930's and 40's Conn saxophones, Naked Ladies. How would Smith know that?
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166976
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The note was a lie, multiplied through each member of its potential audience....
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1669178
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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 . . .
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166900
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“A shibboleth is a test—a way to separate da wheat from da chaff that's as old as the Bible, but as new as the latest trend in men's fashions,” Gus says.
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166922
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my mouth is open, ready to bite your tiny toes
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166922
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Why yes I began writing this, my bildungsroman, Who is Mitsy Jackson, in spring, 1974 or thereabouts, and thank you so much for asking.
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166943
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We decide not to go to the emergency room
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1669158
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Susan said since her divorce three years ago there have been too many Jacks in her life. Seven, if she counted that older guy. She knew that now. Too many. It was the name and little else that drew her to men. She told me the name alone was like Pavlov's bell. It…
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166997
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166995
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I fully intend to show Hamilton the delights of soft Oriental carpeting and a delicious new position I learned not long ago. It involves a silk scarf, a leather strap and some aromatic herbs.
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1669105
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Walter met Danial at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. They didn't have much in common at first, other than AA, with Walter on the recovery side of treatment and Danial reluctantly just beginning.
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166975
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...the daffodils will fling/
their yellow petals, taunting winter
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1669108
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Sunday morning beginning with a bang. Accused, found wanting, sentenced.
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1669179
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Words darken with smut and irony over time.
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166843
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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.
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16681510
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No jagged bits of crust were thrust up/
through the prairie’s black gumbo/
to give us cataclysmic mountain views.
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166822
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166855
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beat them with fists and purses.
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166800
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“Hello, Cheryl” the voice on the other end of the phone replied. It was strong but raspy, yet quiet and controlled. The fellow sounded like he had a frog in his throat.
“How do you know my name?” she asked.
“I know a lot of things about y
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166831
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If this is trouble, please call someone else.
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166800
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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
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