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Dapplegrey (Where He Lived)

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A short time ago, a man who lived near me got angry. He woke up one morning and torched his house, with his wife and stepdaughter still inside. He drove up I-35 to the Georgetown airport, got his plane, and flew it into the Echelon Building in Austin.

Senior Center

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Some of the elderly men and women are coming forward....

Give Back the Moon

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to us! Without it we are less than human and cannot guarantee your safe passage through our woods any more. Give us back the moon. It is the primary element in the makeup of our deepest breaths taken to invoke all cycles to continue. It contains…

TBT

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Back then we used to dance slowly to Sam Cooke's “You Send Me” on your parquet floors, whispering about planting our vegetable garden, planning to seed the lawn with centipede grass, promising to count all the red cars that came down the street.

Cleaning The Dead

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"Don't pull too hard," warned Father. "You might sever it from the body, spraying blood into your eyes."

The Palace of Nansi

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It's advertised as a romance. The poster shows a Sudanese woman with a child at her side collecting gum from Acacia trees.

The Beautiful Mercedes

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The screen door slowly opened. I was expecting the second / coming of perfection.

Black Widow - Snack Whore

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“Psst."I paused in my tracks as I walked in front of the building where Two Doughboys used to be.I looked around. The streets were deserted. I saw the big “For Rent” sign in the empty window where the sweet smell of pizza used to emanate. “Over…

Two

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i am two / one part me / another part them

Salt/Sweet

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Salted sea of summer fingers- sand and salted skinmelt in me; vanilla ice cream lick- your lips; salty kiss saliva- sweet salt of semen run down my chin languid-salty sweat of you.

The Brevity of Anthropology

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In time's embroidery, the human storyis a short stretch of a short strand within the thread of half a knot-and that stretch of strand's defective. What will mourn us when we're gone?Not the plants which live so lightly on the earth.Not the scorpions and not the ants.Perhaps…

The Class of '61

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My head is nailed to yesterday.

Poetry Whores

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Something’s been eating at my craw. I’m just going to go ahead and spill it all out. You ever hear about Poetry Whores? Well, let me tell you a little about them, because if I don’t, then who will? I’m not going to name names. You can pretty much guess

Lola

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I know you through the rich dark brown soilcrumbling in my fingers like chocolate cake.I imagine you nurtured bell-shaped papayas,coaxing their smooth, leathery skinfrom green to yellow,while mangoes, the colors of the island sunset,hung with their tantalizing sweet…

Bats at Twilight

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“If we had more bats we’d have fewer bugs,” I said. She shrank back into her sweater, and gave me a look, then a shrug.

ancients

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rheumy eyes wink, gnarled hands pantomime

Starmen Live in Stars

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Giant stars are beautiful, when you stand directly in front of them.But touching them, is a whole other story.Junior had touched one. A strong burning sensation flew through his arm and down his spine. A feeling of electrocution and burning at the same…

from Abel, to a reproachful correspondent

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when you betrayed the vain ambition of my death,/I did not complain.

Every Mirror with Two Sides

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She was gazing down at her two hands holding the peach seersucker top, but without blinking she saw four hands—ahh, idiot, the mirror! But in the next moment no, it was four hands . . .

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 14

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Frank left Michiko’s building and walked into Central Park.

Complex

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He sees the dogs through the window, his babies, sleeping on opposite ends of the couch. His girl, lying supine, hind legs spread, grotesquely, almost comically, as far as they can without being flush with the cushion. His boy, Cosmo, face down, the power…

Whistler's Mother

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Whistler pounded a nuanced nail, into our inferior foreheads.

Meat and Bones

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The man who put up the clothes line left his kids upstairs at night and came down to my bed.

It's Like That

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Like the term rogue cop

The Island

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My muscles ached but I was awake. That night I didn’t sleep as soon as my body wanted to. I stared at the picture facing me, knowing the young man her father had been was behind it. I kept thinking of his eyes looking out, at the old man who eventu

Into the Mirror

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Her eyes still fixed on him as if to whisper her concerns of fidelity.

Can't We All Be Writers?

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Why not just self-publish on Fictionaut and be read by thousands of my peers? Why not release my cherished work directly to my thousands of Facebook or Twitter or blog friends? Can the budding writer that I am realistically expect a larger audience?

Roads Sign and Speech Acts

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Notice: No Trespassing. Warning: Falling Rock. Caution: Dangerous Curve. Declaration: I Love You.

I Was a Gigolo for a Fruit Fly Database

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All I need is a break; to meet a woman who has access to a fruit fly database, either personally or through a trust established by her fruit-fly collecting grandfather.

Living but Dead, In-between

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You ask yourself, how can you be living but dead? It is not possible. Yet it can be and it can be slightly reversible, but realistically, for most people, it is not. Living but dead, is walking in the world of the in-between. Standing with one foot on the