1535 9 4
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These philosophic notions floated in my head for years and eventually helped inspire my pursuit of basic information in contemporary physics, astrophysics, astronomy, and cosmology when I was not reading or writing fiction or verse.
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153565
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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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153564
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Too often, Calvin's willful head finds its way into his hands.
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153534
|
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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153511
|
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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153521
|
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153551
|
I lift up my sweatshirt and reach with a full fist into my belly button. This is where the fat comes out.
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1535198
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...collapse of the human world. Go, cell phones!
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1535108
|
“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…
|
153532
|
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…
|
153533
|
Sitting in the car, John had the urge to kill himself.
|
1535127
|
no need to write it if you/
live it, conscious of the light, the/
shape, the sound, the taste, and shadow.
|
153521
|
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.
|
153453
|
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…
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1534108
|
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…
|
1534125
|
She sometimes ate her dinner standing up, in front of her living room window.
|
1534139
|
Remember the equatorial heat, the flies,/
the lurking hum and scream of jungle,/
the squalor? Remember the functionary.
|
153454
|
If you can imagine a ghost taking a shower then you can imagine the kind of emotion I have in mind.
|
15341610
|
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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153421
|
I'll strip off the skin down to the begin again.
|
153422
|
Meet Carl. He's six-three, two hundred and thirty pounds. He has light-brown hair,…
|
153475
|
The nerves are birds that guide us to feeling the loop and lift of reverie.
|
1534146
|
|
153461
|
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...
|
153475
|
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. . . .
|
153331
|
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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1533911
|
The brain taints everything it brings to us/
with its limited apparatus, its precepts,//
all the things it thinks it knows.
|
153344
|
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…
|
1533115
|
There are no inspirations./
There are only the things I like/
and the much more numerous//
things I do not like.
|
153311
|
years later, she won’t go near the trees
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