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The Cost of Love

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I was, so I was told, the product of much hard work and a lot of invasive procedures. Initially, I'm sure my parents were making love, but then came the slog, the repeated failed attempts at getting one of mother's millions of eggs fertilized. Those tadpoles just couldn't…

Loose Ends

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He looked peaceful.

Keys

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life, bro/bra

Tiny Window

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I remember the living room heater

Monday

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Always in a hurry/to spoil your/weekend

The Wind Is Going To Take You

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Before the railroad tracks are blown off by the wind, the wall tiles morph to trace 34th Streetwhile a silver balloon emerges from the end of the tunnel. A child’s hand reaches out for the gleam and she, the woman in a black-dress with a mandarin collar,

The Difference Between Men and Women

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When sixth-grade science teacher Pat Farrell assigns an earth-science lab on measuring crystals, the girls collect their materials, read the directions and follow the sequence from beginning to end. The first thing boys do is ask, “Can we eat this?"

The Bird King's Eggs

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1The Bird King's eggs are subatomic particles created serendipitously by a sneeze in a quantum physicist's dream.Occupying a space between existence and nothingness, reason and madness, broccoli and…

Acclimation

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Before I grew used to it I would wake to the sound of the Amtrak whistle echoing down along the tracks behind our trailer park and wonder who was hurtling where through the dark night and across this wide Illinois prairie

The Bird Nests of Lascaux

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With their brightly-colored bits of found string woven into the walls of their nests to teach their baby birds what the worms of the future will look like. Somewhat like the cave paintings of Lascaux for early man in France, when hunti

The So White Woods

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The sun becomes hot. She removes her skirt. She is left with a black bodice, with white laces, leggings underneath and a pair of twelve hole Doc Martens.

benedictus

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he wanders the house/ crying for the hairless tomcat/ (gone for the night/ on an overnight job).

You Don't Listen

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What time is it? 3:47. Adam says before 5 is too early. Maybe he should stay home with our daughters once in a while. Let’s see him make it to 5 o’clock. It is Friday. I’ll mix it with orange juice. He never notices. I better check on Debra.

It is Midnight

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It is midnight in Utah, but I can’t tell. It always looks like midnight in a cave.

Old Friends Getting Older

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I just amuse myself by buying old guns and refurbishing them in my basement as I listen to old Bohemian polkas on cassettes.

Illinois Route 3

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If this road could answer I would ask her what it is like to follow the path of the rippleshimmery river for too many miles through the slowly ghosting towns and the corncovered landscapes of the dying Midwest

My Date with Edgar Allen Poe

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Now, if someone is tellin' you that she had a date with Edgar Allen Poe, you might be tempted to say, "Hey, sister, what kind of drugs you be doin' for the last two days?" But I swear on my Aunt Boo's chastity belt that's what went down and with my…

Sorry, Charlie

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Vietnam, Tet, and beaucoup Charlie

Homunculus

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Tiny was my daughter. Or what was left of her. A mucous-y chunk of what was once in my womb and then wasn’t.

Light

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"You gonna be old before you're old," my father had told her.

###moth#7###

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what was she like you ask? smarter than me for instance she could type alot faster. and she didn’t worry constantly about being poor or having a family looking over her shoulder. maybe that’s what she did with boys. 17 years later and she is in my bed

I Liked My Giant Friends

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When you say they were too big, too wild, they weren't too big to be giants. Giants are meant to dwarf things. They can't help it. They're not trying to make you feel helpless to give them a haircut. They just grow fast. But they…

Headlines

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He brought me flowers once, three wilted carnations I put in water, though the sight of them made me uneasy. He brought me pictures once, too, of three sisters—ten, twelve, fourteen—straddling dirt bikes. He touched my shoulder once, as I edited pictures …

After the Flood

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That TV you got me? Ruined. And the ionizer fan? Ruined too. All your clothes you left over here, all my work scrubs and weekend dresses too, soaked with that river stink water. I kept thinking bout all the dead creatures.

So freaking tired

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So many dreams I need to visit, though

Gentleman Freddy

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Roanne, just out of jail, went to cop. That is, she went to beg fat little Freddy the dopeman to front her once more. She'd have to fuck Freddy, of course, but, well, maybe he'd wait until after this time. Likely not…

Eternal Return

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When I slip through the seams I return to the same place.

The Sound Of...

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What if Everything I have been doing Hasn’t been heard By anyone?

zygomatics

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i saw a sign and it read A PERSON THAT IS MEAN TO THE WAITER IS A MEAN PERSON i thought of you with your high cheekbones, the sense of entitlement unparalleled, the superiority complex that hid much you had a gig and it had probably…

The Hero in Heart of Darkness

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Remember the equatorial heat, the flies,/ the lurking hum and scream of jungle,/ the squalor? Remember the functionary.