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Exhale

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It's as if the house knew I was relinquishing my hold on it.

Prologue (excerpt from a novel)

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The clip-clopping of footsteps now echoes from the opposite end of the alleyway, and as you turn to face the figure who appears behind you, the figure wearing a fierce Noh-drama mask, you determine that this time you will enlist its aid in decoding this r

The Eyes of the Inmate

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The courts had scheduled the date long ago but the time, an hour always left to the warden, had yet to be decided.

GENESIS

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And God said unto the oil can: “Thou art cursed above the cattle, and above every beast of the field. And deep the ground shalt thou go.” “Mother,” said the oil can, “fucker!”

Deus Ex Machina

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He rolls in unbidden across the stubble fields / Old acquaintance astride a newly booming cloud/ Under sky an alien shade of strawberries whipped/ Her watch stops ticking out the rest of her/ scheduled breathing poses

Quarter-turn the Quaternion

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One could count fifty moons hanging in the sky, in rows and columns of smaller skies.

Decision Mountain

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For decades the land the village sat on had switched its allegiance between two countries.

Going Back in Time: Song

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If we go back in time We are living in tents If we go back in time We are living in caves We are fighting over rivers We are fighting over fields Near the soft edges of slime If we go back in time Nothing would have us And we had t

Trumping the Ground Zero Mosque

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My third Rule of Success—and I may not have these in exactly the right order–is always get a pre-nup!

Downtown Milwaukee

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Downtown Milwaukee My feet are exposed, never been out in public even out here— …

Dancing With the Monster

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It comes to me at night, the monster. I don't even realize it's in the room until I hear it breathing behind me. It reaches out its hands and places them on my shoulders. Its fingers are furry and soft, but strong. They grasp the muscles on either side of my neck, and I…

Where is Now and When is There?

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The floor dissolves beneath us, pierced by lasered/ glare of countless eye-beams.

The Green Eyed Lady in the Glass Café

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Is this sought sea dream of the Arctic fox? The green below the circles of the white, above her eyes? On Formica tables where the woman smocks beneath glass borders of their vacant smiles, they pass by windows formulating styles,…

We Never Left

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Above our bellies we are beautiful women with luscious breasts. Where there is skin, believe me, it is flawless, irresistible. Most of us have long hair, but there are some among us who keep their heads close cropped for aerodynamic…

The Watchers

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Up at the top, a quarter mile south, billows of black smoke crawled up the faint blue of the sky.

Packing

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I left Iowa in august when the air was thick and sticky. I had been there three years minus a few days when the boy I'd been sleeping with packed almost everything I owned into my car and waved goodbye. In Baltimore I had few friends and a job teaching English at a…

Things Unspoken

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There's something about the way he touches me every time that makes my heart skip a beat and pushes the air from my throat. I shiver under his hot breath while he whispers softly and pulls himself closer, letting his fingers glide…

Loveless Lover

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Love me like a crutch Love me when I'm strong

Her last good year

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“We are NOT starving!” I stated emphatically. “What ever gave you the idea that you are starving? Honestly, Annie, you are so melodramatic. You have food in front of you right now, don’t you?’ I said pointing to her plate of potatoes and so

Old Shoes for Stranded Soles

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There are stranded people just like us, that's Not necessarily what I'm looking for. Negativity won't pull us through the Barbed-wire halls of hate. And even if I Was the only one, I wouldn't want you To look any different in the mirror. I'm older …

Meeting for a Drink

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But the profligate are blameless now Those who conflate sex and love the way dumber animals mistake heat for light have moved freely back to some primal zone where if I’m felt to be contradictory to the surroundings it’s because I wanted t

Intrepid Explorer

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The Intrepid Explorer recounts his travels for the benefit of subscribers to the Magazine of the Museum of Everything

Sunset

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Behind the bellicose façade lay a soft, compassionate soul. He sat within a swirl of rosy twilight hues, buoyed by the gently creeping tide. A dark wall approached and he mechanically spun and began stroking into the glassy canvas of light and ocean that lay between him…

What my daughter knows I know or some likely version

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He doesn't call, not even on her birthday. She doesn't mention it or complain. She knows she doesn't have it as bad as some, even in this privileged Triangle of North Carolina. She is white and pretty and belongs to what's left of the middle…

OUT ON THE EDGE OF VICTORIAN CIVILIZATION

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Lottie was a slim, fine looking woman. But Dale thought her breast implants were the worst case of overkill he had ever seen.

Scar

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I stared at these meteor impacts, feeling far away, a lone sentient cloud admiring the scoured yet wondrous earth-of-this-girl below me, the lean slope of her side, the soft dip of her neck, the sharp edge of her cheekbone, the monarch wing of her eyelash

Good Belongs to You

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I hope you enjoyed the celebration last night. Good things always come to you. I thought your family would never go home. I didn't get to sleep this morning until 2:59, although I had set my alarm to 6:10. I didn't want you to miss your plane. At daybreak,…

April, Thirteen

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There is a roofer straddling part of our house, pushing shingles off of our roof with the edge of a shovel. …. I've thought seriously, at times, about becoming a nurse. Seeing your mother in a hospital bed, hooked up to a tube, more than one, too…

the heart would have unnatural reverence

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The heart would have unnatural reverence, exalted, bursting with evil, rolling in sloth, if it did not at once reveal its innocence. I saw you again, on the morning of the sun. It was you, or your double, or a son you might have had. Your beautiful bloo

Mauthausen

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I was feeling a bit introspective. I was busy in my own mind assembling the history of the place and getting ready for the visit. I was naturally not someone who would cluster up with a bunch of people I had just met and had arrived to participate in this