1437 3 4
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When it was sticky cool at night, he'd pull her hair up off her neck and spin it like a pinwheel. “You could be anything," he would say. “You could be a preschool teacher.” She waited for him to add, “For dragons! For wallabees! For…
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1437126
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because you pay/
for it to matter to me.
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143710
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Now Ninalee gets up from the table. She starts to put some snacks in a bag for Janny and Benjie, and some storybooks in there too, to read to them in the park: books about trains, mostly, and there’s one with a bus and one with a car...
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perhaps because they were holding hands and sharing tears; perhaps because the moon shone so brightly; perhaps for no reason at all; but both the Coriander and Isabella felt a surge of hope so strongly that both smiled a genuine smile.
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143742
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Frank shouldered his backpack, grabbed the leather satchel packed with his brushes, palette knives, pens, and pencils, and exited the vaporetto at the Rialto Bridge.
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143753
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"... each of them stuck in one finger to sample the goods. Just then Katie felt a breeze on her bare legs. Her skirt literally moving."
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14361410
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The knees remind you: you are old,/
and broken, and unlikely to improve
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1436125
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She sometimes ate her dinner standing up, in front of her living room window.
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143621
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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.
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14361715
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One of the men leaned over and spit long and dark next to where the dog lay curled. He said something about the senora, and the other men laughed.
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143662
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Tarzan peers through a telescope. Earth, in its aphelion, is approximately 40 million miles away. A star. He lives alone. He is old. He worries about going blind. Mars is cold. But there are ways to keep warm. He reads poetry. He lets out bloodcurdling…
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1436136
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Too many sparrows flit and twitter here./
Let’s go inside. The sky is far too big/
and the sun bears down on us like searchlights.
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143654
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“I’m going,” O’Bannon-Krim says with exasperation as she throws trinkets such as Dylan Thomas beer coozies and Edna St. Vincent Millay hair scrunchies into a cardboard box.
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143698
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we name invasive species,
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143694
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The instructor moved over to the whiteboard and wrote in big block letters “FOOTBALL” and then crossed it out. “You should just never treat your newborn like a football. That means no passing it or punting it.
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143601
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The two of them stood at the long end of a pier that cut sharp into an L 25 feet out into the river. It was an old wooden pier that relished in its every crack and splinter regardless of the fresh coat of white paint that melted lazily over the rotting bo
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143600
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Even if you're doing it together, there's no unity when everyone's dancing to their own tune.
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143610
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A San Francisco cab driver named Jake, a friend of a friend, was my date for the party. I didn't really like him, but I needed someone to bring. In the 70s free love was the norm, but it was hard to have sex with a guy I wasn't really attracted to. …
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143611
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I like babies and little kids, more than some people but goddamn, children's laughter out of nowhere (in the night, when you're not expecting it) is creepy. I don't like slugs smeared like nightmare goo on my summer-bare feet, I could do without them in …
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14361610
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Shadows are so admirable in film noir
less so on x-rays and mammograms
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143622
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Many weddings took place at the foot of the Astronomical Clock Tower. One every hour, on the hour. It turned out these were set-up photo shoots for things like men’s cologne, brocade bridal gowns, and smoked carp. At night we wandered around the many
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143581
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143500
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The temperature would drop rapidly once the sun hit the horizon. I had about an hour before this would happen. I stood and put on my coat. The fire had gone out. There was no smoke...
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1435127
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The abundances of age/
are of commodities/
no known demographic values:
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143554
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John held up his pistol and racked the slide to chamber a round. He told me that he knew a few things. He knew I'd knocked up Nikki. His girl. He knew I'd taken Nikki to the free clinic in Gresham. He knew I wasn't…
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143531
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143432
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He nodded six times, and waged his stubby fingers repeatedly, forgetting she was simply two wags of the forefinger and a thin waif of girl came running over.
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One sneaker in the middle of the A-Plus Pawn lot...
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143471
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She talks about window treatments, how the place is maybe too much for one. Wants me to know she’s not much of a cook, and wants me to smell what’s in her oven and compliment her cooking anyway.
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