1537 1 0
|
On Friday evenings they play Scrabble, a whole crowd of them. They use books to keep score, page numbers, instead of a long column of pencil scratches. They organize themselves into teams; the English majors all together, versus biology, history and horn players. She and he…
|
153711
|
Summer bakes the metal playground slide to ripples. Still, kids line up. Sadists, all of them. Lucky enough to choose pain. Max feels it every breath, unwanted.
|
1537102
|
|
153721
|
I don't know what I'd expected from the week of mourning after my mother died but I sure hadn't pictured this marathon cocktail party. Our house is packed with people, food, booze and borrowed chairs. People I haven't seen in years keep turning up with casseroles.I'm…
|
1537126
|
Have you heard this yet? The daughter flew home to care for the mother, whose pump is still tick ticking—though now with aid—which means she leaves the kitchen when the microwave clicks on.
|
153740
|
Then it started extruding tendrils and tying them all into intricate knots.
|
153784
|
Suddenly something clicked.
|
153720
|
I can't believe it's Frankie, but there he is at a table on the far side, just in front of the big picture window. I hold the menu close to my face and peek again over the top, watching as he reaches under the white linen tablecloth to plant…
|
153711
|
When flash and bang merge you are, according to the manual, in deep do-do.
|
153701
|
On the street / The protesters stand / Yelling words empty as wind
|
153721
|
I remember sitting there on the first unfinished rooftop, watching you building houses out of words. You hammered in grammar and punctuation; you said these things needed to be hammered in by hand. You drove the long straight exclamation …
|
1537119
|
A cheap pocket knife was the only sharp I carried in my backpack and they allowed me that. The man with the pot tattoo on his neck said, “All of us here needs some type of knife. You gotta cut up your food. We don't…
|
153798
|
Regret takes the shape of little clouds ...
|
153722
|
I want to be adored for something and chose poetry to be that something adored for. But Annie doesn’t see why anyone would ever choose anything over love.
|
153700
|
It was unusual, a feeling of déjà vu waft in the air. However, this was completely new to them. Mayumi gripped her shoulders as Emi’s lips moved trying to ease her fear. Mayumi did not understand what this stuff was.
|
1536105
|
The washing machine at home was broken. It was an old leaky Maytag. A discouraging mess—twisted panties, sky-blue jeans, and an old lover or two or three floating downstream (the reverse of spawning salmon). Each man was slightly drowned,…
|
153600
|
Mother’s eyes stared outward in a trance, on her throne, visualizing the world Azure made. Though it was right before her, she could not reach it.
|
1536148
|
Even music relies on what/
you know as music/
for its power to enthrall.
|
153643
|
It was a wake-up call. A sign that I needed to stop and ask if I was making wise and sensible life choices.
My iPod was full.
|
153610
|
Even before I tap on the door I know I am being watched with one eye. My footsteps have surely given me away. A swift tug on it reveals her to me—half of her, that is, and I slink past the threshold, to her. From her eyes I see that she has…
|
153644
|
Ok, ok, people are forever asking me, so why did I cross the frickin’ road? Dumb-shit me, of course. Consequences waaay unforseen.
|
1536910
|
When the dark shadows of his limp eyes told us life was slowly seeping away, stolen by his stroke, his wife signed the “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” order and, tearfully leaving the room, she turns, asking a final question, “Think a needy family could use his…
|
1536107
|
My blood has turned to flour I've been in Babylon too long My heart was singed by fire But it's drowning in my song We raised a prayer to Mary We had to take our share We took our places in the ferry But we didn't pay the fare And we don't know…
|
153664
|
After the Tokyo experience, Frank and Michiko decided that when she went on extended tours, Frank would accompany her.
|
15362110
|
I approached him slowly. His voice was soft and raspy. He said, "Kneel down my son, I've been expecting you."
|
15361510
|
in which a man who is bored with years of retirement poses a threat to himself and others
|
153600
|
The young man pulls out his wallet, grabs a couple of bills and stops short of handing them to the bedraggled man. “So how do I know you’re not going to go out and buy some crack with this money?”
|
153621
|
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
|
153642
|
The first and easiest reason was that he never hit me. Well, if he never hit me, then how could it possibly be abuse? Never mind the threats to stab me in the neck. He was only angry. He really didn't mean that. Never mind he restrained me, or cornered me
|
153643
|
I was walking my Belgian Waffle-Hound
Past the Belgian waffle shop
I found a penny on the ground
And did a tiny little hop
I spun around and went inside
The Belgian waffle shop
And bought a little waffle
For my Belgian Waffle-Hound
|
