1486 15 7
|
Her voice gets screechy as she talks of the boy he was caught fondling in the bathroom of a bowling alley. The worst part: the dumb schmuck doesn’t even bowl.
|
148653
|
He looked like a black paper doorway pasted onto a painting of summer.
|
1486104
|
Every day, a fresh new/
strain of Hell reveals itself
|
148521
|
An excellent plan. Just like old times.
|
148500
|
Rome and Carthage wage war as Hannibal crosses the Alps and invades Italy. With him, he brings an army of barbarian hordes hellbent on reducing Rome to ash. For one young Roman soldier, Gaius, he is trapped between his loyalties to the republic, and to hi
|
148544
|
|
148531
|
Sweaty feet, drool from the weighty sleep of mid-afternoon naps, the inescapable perspiration of the South: all combine to create the entwined scent of socks and stale toothbrushes...
|
148500
|
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?”
|
148542
|
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
|
148532
|
I’m casing the place; my boyfriend Jimmy is about to bust in and rob the store.
|
148578
|
In and out of morphine dreams, he flies through the unfinished roof of Illinois sky. Below, matchbox-sized farm machines. A silo becomes his father's thermos, the silver-capped tower from which he stole sips at ten, his first secret. Back …
|
148522
|
|
148597
|
Jeanne and I were married for eight years. I never knew her.
|
148585
|
|
148543
|
The shirts hanging by the back veranda serve as our memorial to them.
|
148575
|
Cicadas shed their skin as they grow, leaving crisp hollowed out remains on tree trunks, fence posts, and the undersides of upturned leaves. Tommy and I would collect them in the early morning and stick them to our clothes like brooches. I used to like Tommy,…
|
148564
|
She stiffens and blusters and roars
Not like a storm,
Not like a lion.
Like a badger, caught in the steel jaws of a trap.
|
148511
|
Where the skin had grazed, shredded by the coarse gravel to form scabs, fascinated Jack. It reminded him of his youth and his own grazes, scratches and stitches. As a boy he imagined scabs were rough foundations of igneous rock, blood like lava pouring th
|
1485126
|
|
148541
|
That is the question,
not to be or not to be
Life, death, whether to be,
all that is superfluous
in the face of laughter
and how to achieve it
under extraordinary circumstances
like not drinking anymore
I’m afraid not all the alcoh
|
148410
|
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…
|
148430
|
Connor didn't bother to wait in the line of busy professionals, opting to cut in front of the sign that announced "Line Forms At Other End."
|
148454
|
After President Trump was elected, my first impulse was to spend the next four years cowering under the bed, whimpering.While I knew that I needed to keep track of what our new commander in chief was up to, watching the news made me too angry and too sad and just too…
|
148410
|
What if
Everything
I have been doing
Hasn’t been heard
By anyone?
|
148464
|
After the Tokyo experience, Frank and Michiko decided that when she went on extended tours, Frank would accompany her.
|
148410
|
Another noise, softer than the first: swish, thud. You are still. The house is very loud tonight.
|
148421
|
At eight o' clock: as, drawn by many bells, The patchwork congregation lopes and stalks, To churches far from serenade of shells To storms, we leave behind the windblown walks, And sails of youth, to glide through liquid hells, A temporal…
|
148462
|
|
148487
|
...coming into that bone yard, you just hang a right, go on past La Fontaine, and take a left a bit further on. Jimbo's right up in there.
|
148453
|
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,
|
