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Wrinkles, Men and Shades of Gray

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You stand in the mirror. You see yourself. You stand sideways; your profile is always your best. You tuck in your stomach, you stick out your ass but it's the same. You stand face front. You shiver. The mirror adds weight to your already sagging breasts, the wrinkles…

she has one of those names that only a southern girl could pull off

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“But I don't HAVE an accent,” she said. With an accent. “Tell him I don't have an accent, y'all.” Looking from one friend to another. Messy ponytail bouncing. I just stared. I may have blinked. A couple times. Every syllable…

Mutterings

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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?"

A Body Unable

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Once again there's too much to handle and no space to process

Diplomatic Relations

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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.

The Celebrity

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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.

Drug Series # 19: Heroin

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Billie Holiday and I want a cup of coffee and they tell us to go fuck ourselves.

Ruptured, Weeps the Hole: The End (ELECTRIC DELIRIUM 10)

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She dips a toothpick in ink, running prick over paper, simply to prove herself wrong.

the true bliss of objects is entropy

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What the tumbler meant

Googling A Ghost

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My buddy had been in the computer business, a systems analyst. Surely there would be some mention of him online. But there was nothing. Nothing, that is, until I saw the obituary.

Grace

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The instant you remember gratitude with enough focus to spring free its power...

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 37

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—Frank, how is your sex life?

Strings Go

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This woman is naked to the waist and then nakeder below that.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 5

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Then he took the tune out to Ben Clarone land. The horn was beautiful, if leaky. His fingers flew over the keys.

Good Morning

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Sleep never fades away quickly. It has to be shaken off, layer by layer, before reality can reach you. That is the way every morning works for me. There are some days when I will sit at the edge of my bed for almost an hour, shedding remnants of dreams

Tostoi's Last Fiction: a footnote to a note

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The note was a lie, multiplied through each member of its potential audience....

R.I.P.

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Her funeral was scheduled for the following Monday, and of course Claudia would attend. Trouble was, Monday was a workday for my parents. So when neither Mother nor Claudia could find somebody else on short notice to keep me, it was decided that I would a

Bye-bye Love

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Barbie wore only her clear pink heels...

Yellow

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Slipshod shoes were the first sign of a meltdown. Sometimes she could see it coming. A prickly gentleman washing his clothes on a Thursday afternoon. One week he’s fine. Nothing wrong with owning a sour face. The next Thursday, his shoes don’t match.

Low On the Hog

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Living lower on the hog than anticipated lower on the hog than previously expected lower on the hog than desired Living on the underside of the hog belly pretty much bouncing on the ground beneath the aforementioned hog belly Living clos

Ballpoint Sketches for Banana Peel Poems

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I wanna make banana peel poems-- slippery little booby traps

Black Ribbon

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The highway stretches out in front of me, a black ribbon winding into the future; a collapsing probability of possibility connecting me with the past and through it to the future.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa is Trying to Say Something to His Mother

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The songs that she used to sing to him still dance in his head while he wrangles equations. The stars in the cosmos spell out her name.

Prayer

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Prayer

Satellite Dish (from The New Yorker)

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Just as one thing I say is “Don’t worry about me,” one thing I think is that you love somebody by living with them...

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,…

Girl With a Typewriter Mouth

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The Girl with a typewriter mouthhas a body like a single sheet of blank white paper. I wasobsessed with the Beatles, she tellsme. Well, there are worse things to beobsessed with, I tell her. No, shesays, I mean REALLY obsessed. Oh,is all I can think to reply to…

Liz

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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...

The Rug

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Marge bought the rug on-line.

Jammin' On Duane Street

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I have cherished the memory of that meal since and have sought out Indian restaurants all over the world. San later told me that the best Indian food was to be had in London