1539 1 1
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our eyes misted white as goatskin
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153996
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153942
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He arrived at Bellevue hospital in a straight jacket bound to a gurney.
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153964
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“What took you so long?” she asks. She seldom asks me that when we’re done, but today I feel ready to protract the glory, to tease out its rise and fall like the lingering chords of a Debussy pastorale.
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1539108
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My first love was a woman of principle. Never deny your man was her motto.
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153961
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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...
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153975
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It is not unusual for farmers to see the future before it’s begun—but I am not speaking here only of the need to hope but more. . . .
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1538911
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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.
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153865
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He stops smiling and only
says he loves me when prompted,
as if asking me to pass the salt
for his inner peace as it tastes too bland.
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153873
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life is a lucky thing, bountiful among the
drugs and flowers
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153834
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Wednesdays were humiliating. Third graders had to bring in twenty-five cents for class dues. If you forgot, the teacher would write your name on the board and it would stay there until you settled your debt. My family could afford the weekly quarter; the problem was…
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153873
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My, but how that girl loved to defenestrate! I shall ever be grateful for my obstinacy with never living more than a single story above ground level.
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153811
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years later, she won’t go near the trees
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1538139
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Remember the equatorial heat, the flies,/
the lurking hum and scream of jungle,/
the squalor? Remember the functionary.
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153842
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eleven seconds of infamy / brought to you by Glenfidditch /who the hell filmed this?
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1538136
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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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15381610
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Lavender, a Liberal Betty, batty from hormones, in a fanciful fit, named her daughter Lavender. Husband Don winced. Brothers Donald, John, Billy, and Tom were puzzled and pleased by this sister, this girl, who was a little bit like them, yet not like them at…
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1538113
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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…
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153821
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My father had a terrific argument with his wife, my stepmother, a flaming harridan with a voice like hydrochloric acid, and insisted on driving me back home to California.
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1538116
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153812
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suddenly she blurts out: “You are vulgar.” There is actually no perfect translation to it. “Bastos ka.” She meant I was vulgar, but also disgusting, distasteful, offensive, rude, salacious, obnoxious…
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153731
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My dad was an Army Reservist stationed in the U.S.—New York and Texas—the bugler in his corps. He golfed on summer weekends at Hazeltine in the course of his career. I had seen houses water colored prettily within the lines on L.S.D., after noticing not
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153753
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Magdalena followed the receding tide, her tiny feet leaving no rumors in the hard sand. She gathered only the most beautiful shells and presented them to her waiting Abuela. Her grandmother told her that the only things that a woman truly owns are her dreams. She told her…
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153700
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I don't like listening to the radio anymore. Nothing is clearer than a live voice with something to say. Give me a big field with no one around but the birds and I will send the bees away from me. I will deny all bugs to buzz.
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153755
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153711
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Methuselah. That’s what they call him, the regulars that ride my train. Other things too, but Methuselah is the one that sticks in my mind. It seems to fit. It’s not as cruel.
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153721
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153741
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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…
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1537108
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“I have a theory,” she said on their first date, which was at an Indian restaurant where the music was a lovely singsong but the chef seemed enraged as he clapped a ball of dough between his hands, then threw it into the flames. And her date, whom she…
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153732
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She turned him down again. Said it was her insomnia. She was so tired, she said, she had to work in the morning, and why couldn't he understand that? She rolled over facing away from him. He sat up in bed, thinking. When was the last time? Three months ago? Four? He…
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