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Airman

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Tent City has gone quiet. There is a deadline. I heard it on the news. I’ve never thought about the word before. How in this place it means what it means.

The Birth Canal Was Easy

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It was time.

How to Have a Dinner Party

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sherbet is hard cash.

The Medicine

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It wasn't pain but half of it, so half of it I mended

The Only Tricks We Know

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The day Eugene told me his secret he gave me a bouquet of lilies. Ice clung to the petals like fuzz. Sorry about the frost, he said. That was an accident.

Cocoa Instead

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While waiting for the water to boil she formulated an excuse that the Saitos would be forced to accept as to why she must drop Isuko as a student. Suddenly the kettle sung out like a soprano, desperate to be silenced.

How to Write a Poem in 7 Easy Steps

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1. Research how to locate and outline the chin of a toy terrier. Find a toy terrier, outline its chin, then count the hairs on said chin to determine the number of lines your poem will have.

What I Learned From Magazines This Week

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At least ten people have been shot by their dogs since 2004, usually in hunting accidents. (AARP Bulletin, January February 2016)If somebody phones you claiming to be with the IRS, it's a scam. The real IRS will only open communications with a taxpayer via the U.S.…

Filter

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The brain taints everything it brings to us/ with its limited apparatus, its precepts,// all the things it thinks it knows.

a good ending

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It's twilight

Shooting Smoke

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In our first conversation, she tells me love is a dragon: she has come across it’s destruction, hears of it’s size, mythology, of it’s immorality. I sip my hot cocoa (God, I pray she thinks it is coffee)...

NYQUIL DREAMS

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The capsules tumble around, one of them plinking against the crown in my upper-right jaw. I hate the crown… a mute reminder of the first time Brad hit me. Swallowing the capsules, my tongue probes the left side of my mouth, finding the other two crowns…

The Sway

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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…

let’s play hooky

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There is just something about a thin, white cotton v-neck t-shirt, he thought, as he ran his hand over bleary eyes and dehydrated lips. He wanted her, as always. But he needed just a little more rest. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail. It…

Keys

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life, bro/bra

Becoming

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Ego bereft of consistency Betrays a heart hungering to toll. Unable to trust its will Or harbor imaginary gods, It gains a hold melding into a role whose proven viability Can give convincing cover To buy time to fabricate An identity that feels unique, Yet…

The Perfumed Kitten

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We named her Big Cat—I don’t know why. Maybe because she was already grown when we got her, unlike the kittens we’d seen in the pet store window that Dad wouldn’t let us have.

Capt. Love's Last Command (poem)

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The old man is dead, body propped in its cart like the dead El Cid strapped on his horse by Jimena to save Valencia, and yet...

Late Night / Early Morning

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It's 2am. The wind is moving at speed, whipping gently the tree branches, and their leaves rustle simultaneously to create a audible sound, like hands flipping through sheets of paper, or that feeling you get on your fingertips when going across a textured surface. I'm…

An Articulation of Blades

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The new king hunted often. We heard her whirring above, the terrible whirring a forest of—, and she drifted over our city half dangling from the chopper, rifle barrel glinting.

Resolution

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Too often, Calvin's willful head finds its way into his hands.

Playground in the Fire

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People questioned my motives when I became a smokejumper again. They said I had a death wish, or that somehow by going into battle against the big Pacific Northwest forest fires, I was still trying to put out the flames of the burning car in which my sons Jake (age…

James Dean

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The woman lit a cigarette and sat on the edge of the bed, crossing one leg over the other. She took a long drag, tilted her head back, paused. Her eyes flicked to the NO…

She Rose From the Weeds

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you drove by the woman standing on the verge the woman with the shoulders of a long distance swimmer and you told yourself her story: she'd slept in the wiregrass she carries…

Acclimation

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Before I grew used to it I would wake to the sound of the Amtrak whistle echoing down along the tracks behind our trailer park and wonder who was hurtling where through the dark night and across this wide Illinois prairie

ASH WEDNESDAY

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Everybody knew the McDonald’s at the Waterfront was selling theraflu stamp bags, and I guess I’d heard how bad it was for you—they’d had reports of dumbasses ODing on channel 2, 4, and 11—but it was a lot stronger than regular heroin and a lot cheaper...

Vitamin D

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I caught her a-feasting with her eyes and smilin' at that Jesus- haired Waffle House cook, Dennis Roy, again and I said, “Merlene, my tiny kitty-kat, they's no reason to carry no torch for him ‘cause he may not be with us very long ‘cause, if you notice, they's no…

Homonyms

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Ascent/Assent Together the horizon/ Catechism of love

One Foot in front of the Other

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And soon you'll be walking and walking and walking and walking and walking and walking and walking

The Evening News

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When I got home from work I parked my briefcase in the hall, acknowledged our dog and immediately went into the kitchen where wife, Sherry, was cooking supper. Without turning around at the sink, she said her usual, How was your day? I said, Fine, and yours? She turned…