1566 6 5
|
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.
|
156644
|
Once or twice, it was only once or twice. Three times, if I really count. And I wasn't giving or loving. And my self stayed hidden and I kept most of my clothes on.
|
156622
|
Smoke from the oil lamp traced the wall. It gave Nana something to read.
|
156611
|
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...
|
156600
|
‘It's perfect,' said Maggie as she lay in the casket. Harold Barnes offered his hand. ‘It's a shame he never got to see it,' Maggie continued as she climbed free of the coffin.
|
156654
|
If you can imagine a ghost taking a shower then you can imagine the kind of emotion I have in mind.
|
1566137
|
Don and I return to Rasheed's room on the top floor of the middle house where Uzma sits waiting to speak her piece. I'm feeling blessed listening to their enthusiastic chatter. It's like the world is opening up to me again, allowing me to experience a rush of…
|
156621
|
If there was a single constant in the boy’s life, it was that he had always thrown knives. In his youth he had thrown them only in his mind . . .
|
156621
|
Grady Quail wondered why God didn't just have another son
|
15661110
|
|
156687
|
He disrobes; shoes, socks,
shirt, belt, pants. He smells of hard work.
The nude whisper of everything else.
|
156643
|
the start of what you predicted
|
156653
|
Benjamin stands beside his bed and unpacks his few things – wire cutters, knife, tape, line, two blocks of C-4, wallet, brush, and a small stuffed animal – a monkey.
|
156555
|
|
156511
|
of Jim Beam when I was maybe fifteen. Or anyway old enough to admire the lesson.
|
156520
|
The gentleman is discreet, but his eyes wander from his paper at intervals as we travel together from London to Manchester. We happen to be on the same train and he happens to be sitting opposite me. I happen to be a size 34C.
|
156501
|
I was driving by with a dampened eye
|
156520
|
Christmas Muzak was piped through to every store in the shopping mall. Giant red velvet bows adorned reproduction Victorian gaslights. Yards of glittered cotton pretended to be snow. A Santa rang a brass bell.
|
156541
|
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…
|
156588
|
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…
|
156500
|
Being the baby in a family forces a focused outlook on life. Not necessarily profound, not even wry, but a perspective that pushes for two things - recognition, and to be in on whatever is going on.
|
156541
|
You gather their faces in the palms of your hands and their purple eyes blink, blink, unseeing.
|
156588
|
Always in a hurry/to spoil your/weekend
|
156433
|
And, you peasy-headed shrew, don’t you dare think I didn’t notice that it was you who stuck that fork into my neck in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot late Tuesday night . . .
|
15641413
|
Magdalena White Herrington praised the lucky stars who’d sent her the Klonakilty ghosts.
|
156473
|
life is a lucky thing, bountiful among the
drugs and flowers
|
156489
|
a half-moon hung straight up and down
|
156461
|
You're on the good side of thirty, probably with a little girl or boy of your own sleeping at home, and here you are dragnetting at three in the morning. We're all broken, and the scars we trade are all that remains of our fragile, once complex lives.
|
156453
|
No girl hits hard enough.
|
156464
|
“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.
|
