2843 13 9
|
|
2842 22 17
|
Mama reads about UFOs in paperback books and newspapers with big cloudy pictures. Her girlfriends know about flying saucers, too. They get drunk at night when they are sitting all alone in their living rooms because they are divorced or married to men who
|
2839 14 11
|
“When he felt most loved, he felt most _ burdened.” Stephen Dobyns When she loved him she burdened him. She knew he felt a pull but he always resisted it. They went to an old refurbished hotel in Venice and asked if they might see the rooms. …
|
2838 14 16
|
I get it. Poetry is an effort. Language is an effort. Words are an effort. Reading words is an effort. A big effort. It takes energy. Attention. Focus. Who has that? Nobody. So truly. I mean it. You don't have to read this. If you're already reading this you can…
|
2838 8 8
|
Q: “How many husbands have you had, Mrs. Guggenheim?”
A: “D’you mean my own, or other people’s?”
|
2838 13 7
|
It’s not every day that a girl like me gets greeted with a hairy beast that orgles and spits when excited. Didn’t help none that it only had one eye. Poor little ole bugger.
|
2837 22 13
|
When you live in New Orleans, the only time you ever get to see cows is at the Winn-Dixie 24 Hour Super Store, in the back between the dairy and the seafood.
|
2834 7 4
|
“In retrospect, perhaps I should ask my renter’s insurance to cover damage from lava lamp discharges. But I am not a person who enjoys a fracas.”
|
2834 9 11
|
His feet are the size of thumbs, the segments of his toes no larger than grains of rice.
|
2833 21 15
|
The dog is there, on sorry legs, with sorry claws. He looks toward the man, the bat, and says, You know me, Man. I know you know me.
|
2832 13 7
|
It will be a beautiful, luminous, rollicking, transcendent book, the manuscript smudged with tomato sauce and tears.
|
2825 33 24
|
your mania for sentences / has dried up your heart
|
2824 2 1
|
[Her adviser] looked at her and tilted his head, smiling. Over his shoulder she saw the M104 bus cruising up Broadway, and considered diving under it. Instead she took off toward the corner, in shame, and he followed. When they parted ways, he took her ha
|
2823 14 7
|
I am seven years old today and I want the dog by the river, the one with the great mane of hair like my father's who is a singer at night, and with big ears, too, that grow from the top of its head so that I can tug on them if it's being bad or stroke them…
|
2821 13 7
|
If I had a daughter, this it how it would be. It would be all, Stand up straight, missy, shoulders back, no slouching, and she'd be sulky, sullen, pouting, wilful, and I'd see in her eyes, which would be my eyes, that she was starting to hate me, and I'd
|
2820 1 1
|
“I killed a man.”
“Whaaattt???” I'd been meditating on the sun. I figured he was trying to jolt me awake.
|
2817 7 3
|
|
2814 5 4
|
The morning of her suicide, Nonny Rice received a letter.
|
2814 0 0
|
Gerald's law practice wasn't new. He'd worked on the law review and finished near the top of his class thirty years ago. After earning his J.D., he'd gotten a master of law in taxation. His favorite cases required researching legal precedents, and he…
|
2814 0 0
|
A five-star, world famous hotel nearby even had a new fence put around it recently, to keep out the riff-raff. That would include me. The hired help. A gardener.
|
2811 12 11
|
"So, like the Goldilocks thing…"
|
2811 5 2
|
It couldn’t be a worse time for failed novelist Robert Grayson. He’s 40 and falling apart. He’s balding and accumulating a gut. His job writing technical manuals for software looks like it might get cut. Then his wife does the unthinkable and files
|
2809 3 1
|
In the night, a several-hundred-pound Black Bear scaled our neighbor’s back fence, bounded down the gravel footpath between our houses and, confused by the people and lights, followed his instincts up a large pine tree across the street...
|
2807 17 10
|
Trent’s had many phases: Madonna, Bette, leather, water sports, rollerblading, haiku, chicken queen, rice queen, muscle queen, daddy. But religion? This is new.
|
2807 9 3
|
A plain oval face, opaque except for a birthmark streaking the right cheek like chicken shit.
|
2806 4 2
|
This is my motorcycle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My motorcycle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my motorcycle
is useless. Without my motorcycle, I am useless.
|
2806 36 19
|
"She gnawed her arm off in the morning, before he woke...."
|
2804 7 3
|
Conversation becomes Electra, as do her eyes. Electra’s head is grey, like the head of my Frau Freud, Martha. Her intelligent irises are darkly pigmented, and her sclerae are edged with a dramatic, black line of the sort that Cleopatra affected. In ou
|
2803 33 17
|
Fabio has a soul of passion. A beautiful soul of passion. His passionate soul was so beautiful the ancient stars shone upon him and made him look like ghosts at night.
|
2803 40 12
|
The memory of thinking
in some other language
|