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A Poem for Chris Toll

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we all die from the bottom up

Barrier Island

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At the beach house

Twelve Pens

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Their last story

Saturday Birthdays (from FATHER MUST)

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When his mother was all dressed up on New Year’s Eve, and his father, even thought they had tickets for the dance, announced to her he wasn’t going to go, Johnny had gone into his room, put on a white shirt, a dark suit, his dress shoes, and a clip-o

Cold

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I told her I didn't love her. She said love wasn't important; she wanted to marry a man she could respect.

Dead to Rights

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He draped the sheet over her body. Blood spotted the fabric, rose petals on snow.He left the pistol, but pocketed the first edition she'd signed. Part of his fee.In the park, he ditched the glasses, fake mustache, and anorak before making the call.The publisher called an…

The Judge's Wife Part 6

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—Strip down to your shorts. Put on this gown, open to the rear.

Exordium

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Overhead cranes balance ordinance from one end of the palatial enclosure to the other. There are robots, high-voltage, force-fields…more than a hundred ways someone could get hurt. I looked back again…She was gone.

Brasita de Fuego

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I still picture her waving her bare arms and hands into the purple bellied clouds above the trees, her crooked smile, the spiraling silver maple seeds cascading soft circles around her determined reach, as though the very tree limbs shaping the sky above

Deadly duel: Blow v. Teach

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At last, we learn if Blow has the cojones to fight.

Easy Lessons

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A hinge in my heart is broken.

Our Last Night at the Nunnery Motel 2.0 in Milano

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They make you work For your pizza in Italy You have to slice it yourself While wearing a gas mask To ward off the cigarette smoke From every neighboring table While chasing away the Mosquitos and the pigeons The flies and the gypsy r

Seasonal Affective Disorder

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A man of action would take to his rake/ but Sloth would rather watch and wait/ for snow to erase each leaf on leaf.

Dark-Thirty

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The smell of garlic, soy, and onions/ exhausted from Skillman Wok/ perfumes December air.

M. Nerveux Chronicles: Toad Suffers a Bad Business

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Herr Toad smokin'

Strangers on a Train

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I'm putting makeup on my face. The woman next to me is reviewing legal briefs.

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 …

Glass Rooster

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ghosts of the previous owners who leave a trail of whispers

LADY WOOD

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I was sleeping in a pile of teenage bodies soft limb spread over soft thin limb.

Great Books of the Western Bedroom

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Artie Shaw gave Ava Gardner a reading list in preparation for their honeymoon that included The Brothers Karamazov, The Origin of the Species, Das Kapital and The Magic Mountain.

Bearded Lady

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Nights this husband returned home still hungry sometimes, even for her forearms against his own

A Record of Wrongs

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A dead deer on the side of the road and the older boys not listening to her as they stab its eye with a stick.

the honey ant of Kaapa Tjampitjimpa

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1I'VE BEEN looking though books of paintings and I've been thinking …

The Family Tradition

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Your father, his father, and his before that, your mother, her mother, and all the way back have kept a tradition by chance or by will to each have a baby (or several) until…

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…

Then You May Have Complicated Grief...

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......Based on an ad I heard on the radio from Mass. General Hospital in BostonHave you ever experienced death?Have you been in grief,past the cut off periodof six months?Has it affected your life?Has it strained relations with your wife?It is our beliefthat you…

Broken Night

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Could I really seduce and rob a total stranger -- just on a dare?

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…

Blind

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a dim wood-paneled stair leading to the ladies’ rooms, candle-lit.

Paddy Wagon

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So many are so sick.