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I was shooting baskets in the driveway when the Mexican kid delivered the groceries. He drove in fast and loud . . .
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166567
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Except where its waves break gently,/
white frothed and reassuring along the shore,
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166567
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“Not all the birds are to be trusted, and there are other spies more evil than they are.” —J.R.R.Tolkien This may well be our own about time, time to walk out that comfortable front door forever into danger. Nothing will ever…
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166585
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collars of obedience /
discarded in the pyre /
with draft cards and bras
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166544
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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.
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166577
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I spent most of those days in my car. Stashed in the trunk was a cache of precious stones, neatly sorted and separated, bound in smooth black velvet inside a smooth black briefcase.
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166565
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Going to the candy store at night in the section of town called Kalliope. Riding bike, trying to get there before it closed at ten. Getting candy at that little store with the glass containers and the rows and rows of candy. Getting milk there…
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1664148
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an undercurrent of fear is running through my community
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1664108
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After his chemotherapy failed, he went water skiing.
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166455
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beat them with fists and purses.
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166442
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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.
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1664158
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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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166495
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My body feels chilly but it's not from the outside temps. It seems to me it's the opposite of a fever.
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166420
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One day when they were sitting on the curb together at 4th Street and Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa and Joe was calling out to passers by in a singsong voice, “Spare change for cigs,” she had persuaded them that they should try to join the circus.
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166400
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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.
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1664118
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“The beginning was good. That’s what he likes. The moment when you’re driving in the open air and your hair is flying and your skirt is whipping up around your knees, and he’s smoking, of all things, and happy and looking at you."
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166400
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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.…
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166420
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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.
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166464
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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…
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166400
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"Look at the grime on those curtains. Not fit for an Emperor. Pull them down. Put up fresh new ones. Not a spot."
"Oh! Look at this throne. All uneven legs. The gems are not shining. The gold looks dull. Fix it, fix it, fix it!"
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166462
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Chubby. Plump. Pudgy. Portly. Bulky. Buxom. Rotund. Ample. Hefty. Corpulent. Zaftig.
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166400
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Ever since they switched from paper scripts to the little rubber balls branded with code I have been inundated with sickness.
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1663178
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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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1663106
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She is face down in the snow
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166397
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166365
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Ivan was used to explosions, but this was high in the sky. He was on his back between tall sunflowers that grew infinitely in all directions. The blast made the flowers bow their heads. Bits of debris fell from the blue sky, some shiny, trailing fire or smoke. The boy…
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166375
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The receipts all fell into the black leather valise he’d retrieved from storage that afternoon, except for the forty-eight cents, which wound up in the right front pocket of his jeans.
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166389
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Mr. Blumberg and I sat side by side on a small couch in the family room. He was watching a football game on TV.
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166388
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His mother was a ballerina.
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