Most read stories

Seeing Me

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I got to see me the other day.

Natural History

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It sits up tall on its hind legs to take in all of whatever this is, big and bluer than the sky, death's own taxicab parked on its doorstep.

Have You Seen Me?

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It’s as she reaches into the fridge for the carton of half-and-half with the grainy waxy photo of the little girl—Last Seen 10/2/06—that the memory surfaces: “Hey. That’s mine.”

Noodle

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Our painter man was killed by a bunch of snotty kids who were making fun of him. A gun went off. What is a noodle to do? He wasn't sitting alone in his world, anymore. Where was his famous straw hat? His trusty pipe? He desperately needed to smoke…

Aurora Borealis

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I recalled the one night stand I'd had with the girl one balmy summer night in Minneapolis. We lay on my bed in the moonlight, and I touched the nipples of her tiny breasts with the thumb and pinkie of one hand.

Recipe for the Broken

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This poem first appeared in “Walt’s Corner” of The Long Islander, founded by Walt Whitman in 1838.

Elevator to the Angels

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I opened the closet door and there stood Eugène Ionesco lost among our clothes.

Misunderstood, Meet Cynical.

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The blaring scream from my alarm clock suffices as my wake-up call. It disrupts me from my dream state that I so rarely get the privilege to experience any more. I've always loathed that alarm clock, so I turn it off in the most sensibly aggressive manner I know how: just…

MOTHER MOUSE AND HER BRATS

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Oh, you aren't going to lecture us, for heaven's sake?

Tongues

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I feel his hand on my face, feel it brush past my lips, and I taste my sister's blood.

Why I Love You

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I love you because your eyes are both crossed When you do it, because you’re focused On the inside of the universe I love you because You’re on a roller coaster Through life And I can ride along For the thrill of it I love you because

Chair and Umbrella, $25

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If white t-shirts are only an SPF of 8, she couldn’t even imagine what a white nylon-mesh umbrella on this godforsaken beach might be in terms of protection.

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 34

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—Now that’s a hell-of-a-painting, Frank, he said. Those colors are engaged in warfare. How the hell did you do that?

Sorry, Charlie

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Vietnam, Tet, and beaucoup Charlie

Ink Play

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Lying on a high seat in the south study, this is what I see:

Watching Stanley Kowalski in the TV Room of Belle Haven

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That streetcar named Desire, it don't hardly stop for me no more. Leastwise not while I'm awake, and I don't have to be telling no nosy aides why I make them noises in my sleep.

FWA (Fiction Writers Anonymous)

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Sebastian and Janice had been a natural match. They sought to deny this at first because a recovery assistance program was not a place to forge intimate relationships. It worked out wonderfully in Hollywood, but Hollywood, as everyone knew, was just a facade. So…

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.

Sinking to the beat

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I'd wear my pajamas too, fitting for the big sleep

Parsing We

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An excellent plan. Just like old times.

Sensation

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She could see him doing these things but she could not hear him.

Ichthyology

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The doctors said, when she was born, that the gills would eventually fade away on their own. Nothing to fear, they said; no more unusual than the rare child born with a tail, or a dense pelt of fur, or a single sharp tooth jutting from its new pink gums.

Trade-Offs

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Smiling, holding hands, Joe and Lara basked in the sunshine of the mid January day as they approached the diner. The temperature was warm enough for golf. Joe had played in far colder weather in spring and fall.

After Eliot

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Her breath was on me

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

Invoking Fire

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We talk of his time in the jungle.

Boston Marathon

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As I walked down to the Subway, I thought to myself that now, after the horror in Boston, everybody looks like a terrorist.

Nose

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At the conference her boss showed off his knowledge of wines.

Vanishing Point

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the two become one where/ all things end,

Deer People

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There was no provision for keeping the post on the door, but I did not have the fingernails to pry it off.