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Sagacious Abridgment

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A cloudy autumn morning greeted Sean as he stepped from the trolley at Grand Central Station. On his way to the tracks he purchased a copy of The New York Times dated October 24, 1934.

Assiduity Fourteen

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Don reports everything to Uzma and Rasheed, I'm aware of that. It doesn't bother me. I'm not hiding anything from them or anyone else.

In Search of a Meaningful Moment

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She wheeled more deeply into the office towards Mason’s desk. Keith hurried to the desk and pulled the chair out of the way for her and a sat down next to her. She was blue-eyed, pale and completely hairless, which made it difficult to guess her age.

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…

Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get To the River

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I think we could be twins, our hands hitching us together like paper dolls, our parkas making blobby round balloon shapes as outlines for our bodies. I imagine each of us holding onto someone else, and the line continuing on from there until we have a cha

Deception

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Distance.

Summer, 1966

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After my mother died, my father shipped me to my uncle's. He hadn't told me she was dying, so he could just mourn alone.Lena lived next door, Italian, my age -- which was ten -- beautiful. She was watched by goons in black suits. Her parents owned a restaurant. Across the…

Study in Contrast

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But tonight while your finger glides across the glossy pages of Popular Science I hold a séance for the Holy Spirit in utter seriousness among the book clutter and crumpled manifestos in the basement

Possum

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A possum sits on a fence. The fence is downtown in a not-very-big town. Hard to say about possums and fences; this is not the first possum to sit on a fence. Once, during a suburban backyard party a possum sat on a fence and observed. Before long he could walk more…

13. spring makeout haiku

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tangerine mouthfeel

Storyboard

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For a time he documented his facial expressions.

There's A Place I Know

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“Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water."- W.C. Fields Around the next corner is a dark green door a dark…

Winsome Mshindi

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The cold and the ice’ve really stoked a fire in those old bones of his. He runs with the gait of a racer, front legs straight out—each extension producing a crack like Jack London spitting into the cold...

ANGER

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You gave me everything, delivered with a hungry mouth. Tease.All taken away, erasedby a few words.Lips that poured forth and lips that took insharp, electric pleasures.Now withdrawn, thin, petulant.Not satisfied,you crushed my sanctuary.with so…

Sorry Now

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You’ll say you should have known. You’ll blame my music.

XAM, PARAGRAPH, May 22, 1998, Houston, Texas

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I wrote this paragraph (the first in a series of 14 paragraphs) shortly after Frank Sinatra had died and during my last visit to my boyfriend, M. He had not seen me write something in years.

Losing It

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The following is a true story, or rather it is a true experience from the story of my life. Some say that just because something happens doesn't really make it "true".

The Lincoln Effect

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Ty speed-walked down the long ass tunnel that connected his “A” train to the NJ Transit bus, which would take him across the bridge, where he'd splurge for a cab to take him home.

Winter in Phoenix Arizona

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Winter in Phoenix Arizona happens in July. An overgrown lawn is working its way up onto The sidewalk. And then there's you with your mower, A hidden newspaper in the middle of everything. Snowflakes puff out from under Spinning blades. You hover above like…

mourning

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The moment I was told of your passing...

Span

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That’s a long time/ to live with the certainty/ of your death

Martin

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He'd sit or stand, as if this was common to see: in the street walking by, such a man.

Shit May Come And Shit May Go, But A Good Tarpaulin Can Last Forever

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It happens. Someone blows something off, someone else forgives it, then tat for tit and verse visa, and you’re missing someone’s wedding because you thought it was Thursday and they didn’t mention it to you anywy, but you’re still BFF and don’t

A Thousand Miles Away

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In the house by a kidney-shaped lake, her grandfather was speaking to a stranger about a foreign war that had never ended, had spread close to home.

Doing Time Outside (novel excerpt)

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If you are a family member or friend of a person incarcerated in a correctional facility...

Wisdom the Hard Way

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Loaded on acid, Billy blatzed into a 7-11, holding his dick like he hoped the store guy would think the thing was an Uzi. The guy laughed and pulled out a .38 Special and the cops carted Billy to jail. …

A Leaf For Instance is Only a Green Enough Calling Card(A Valentine)for Someone if You Care to Mail It

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Because you alone must know how to make a smile shine at me and be like the sun, I can only feel its warm and coolish colors becoming that perfectly deepened yellow then on to the red if you please that makes a shy kind of blue out of day. That…

Feast

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I watch the seagulls making their quacking noises

walk off the animal

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I don’t know how some can do it. Can they just walk off the animal in the yard or something, and forget about love altogether? Some have that built-in coldness of the soul, I guess. I don’t get it. The blood does not seem to shake their hearts. Are th

We Cannot Cross the River

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We cannot cross the river until it freezes. Bekker predicts January. For food we gather leaves, berries and roots from the thick forest behind the cabin. Suarez boils what we find into a revolting paste that we spoon into our mouths with dirty fingers.