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Everything but the Kitchen Sink

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It starts with a letter, down the back of the couch, ending, ‘love, always.' I read only the kisses aimed at me - a firing line running off the page. How long has that letter hidden there? It secreted itself in a corner of the house…

Master of Puppets

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“There’s enough food to last here a week.” Ferdinand assured, as a dingy wooden cabin came into view. They were on foot now. He’d insisted on forcing the car into a ravine, using a heavy rock and the last of the gasoline to drive it into a heap of rusted

Born in 1991

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Sometimes I think living in a house with so many rooms / you can get lost just making your way to the fridge / should be enough. I chastise myself for wanting more.

STROBE

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There's a Pube in My Coffee

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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."

Leaking

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The bathroom faucet is leaking again. Do they make diapers for faucets?

The Light In My Arms

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I asked him his name and here’s the kicker, Leiby. It means lion. You know what? I said mine is Levi, how do you do. That means to accompany—like in the root of the word, it’s got that meaning. As in levayah, funeral in Hebrew. Does that only

Session

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Maybe it might be best to, you know, have less frequent meetings.

Water Hitting Water.

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Jenny was certain nobody saw her when she took the slinky shirt from her father's store. It was blue with buttons shaped like cherries, the fabric light as air. She balled it up in her hand. Her father owned a chain of boutiques called Body Electric. The racks were…

A city in the forties

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Along the hollow center

Beautiful Are the Feet: Part One

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Naomi hadn't expected them to come in such a big box. When the UPS man tried to hand it to her, she told him there must be some mistake, but then he pointed to her name¾NAOMI BROWN¾right there on the top. When she finally got off all that tape, she had another…

Gossip

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Gossip Betty Martini divorces husbands when they least expect it. On a seeming whim, she pays a visit to dear Arnold, who keeps her papers handy in his top desk drawer. She initials here and there, signs with a…

Heron

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. . . nor did mine eye apologize.

Doll Parts

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She’s always had one foot on a pedestal and the other in a gutter.

Elephant with a little Poet on its Head

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“Every word was once an animal.”--Emerson This circle has been Broken. The mother has Disappeared inside the wounds Of gunfire like an Eye drop. Who knows if Any of them left, crunched Down, whole into the…

Raindrops

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'Every raindrop sounds different.' says Barney. He's bouncing along beside his mother, twisting in her hand like warm milk. She looks down at his Big Bear hat and tugs. They wait together at the edge of the busy road. 'How do they sound?' 'Zzzing.…

various verses

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in a willow garden lush shade/drapes dark the young woman's small house/with the lone window, the white door . . .

July 16

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Last night as a duration spent hovering in electronic media-space.

Condensation on the Glass

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Condensation on the Glass Riding down 22, I'm looking out the window. Time is a whirlwind. Your memory relinquishes itself, yellowed and fraying at the edges. It's raining and cold. I make a smiley face in the condensation …

Pool

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“That pool will be the death of me.”Which Dad said at least a couple of times a week. Ten times the week after he'd read the TXU bill.“Goddamn pump, and that twitchy little Polaris. We should fill that pool with dirt and plant some trees and Asian…

mondays get all the heat

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when i was five or six/ we lived in an apartment/ and every sunday/ i'd lie on the carpet/ to watch squares of sunshine/ crawl across the rug/ while my mother inflicted upon us/ a centuries-long hour of television/ worse than any droning mass.

Escaped Poems

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Sometimes my poems escape. They crawl out through my Wi-Fi connection, I suspect.

Our Travels on Fire

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We were offered mannequins that had pubic hair that grew and swirled, and could visit like a pet, and sit in your lap

One Way (for Tina Kieffer)

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This mother, she buys a one way ticket whenever she visits her three daughters who have wandered far from the eyes of her pearlescent knitting needles and tutti-frutti yarns.

A Next Step

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The first night I met her we slow danced to George Strait songs for most of the evening and when we took a break, our talking went warm and well as we sat eating hot dogs and sipping beers until she dropped a couple of bombs, first, telling me she was married and then, that…

My Belgian Waffle-Hound: Song

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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

Childbed (cenotaph song)

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Those who don’t die, desire, descend. No song aloft arises from my irk. The seeing chieftain, not of sea, nor sand, nor boat, I till nightfall stammer alive, dig boneless trenches against tiding dregs and lathe, hunt, wallow, plow the hours, call in awei

The Bounce

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I. Two cancer scares since June, one came up nothing the other nothing much. (My breasts are dense: I know all about moles— little bastards don't have to get sun to go nuts.) My manuscript travels ether to…

Magdalena

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Magdalena followed the receding tide, her tiny feet leaving no rumors in the hard sand. She gathered only the most beautiful shells and presented them to her waiting Abuela. Her grandmother told her that the only things that a woman truly owns are her dreams. She told her…

Five Million Yen: Chapter 67

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Anatoly Gringovitch sat in the police car returning him to the Opera House.