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Cold

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Winter will be cold this year, you tell her. You read that. She says she is with child with her new husband. You tell her she's forty-five, it is selfish. The baby. It's fine. You demand to be at her tests. Evan may let you, she says. He's a doll. She would never use that…

"Your face seems faint against the violet glades..."

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Your face seems faint against the violet glades; The long winds echo once, then fail to start. Some wounding scent has stripped my hopes apart That dwelled to scent you. From the cavalcades The leaves make, bare at times since eve's sting fades To…

Elizabeth Karlin, M.D. and U.W.-Madison’s OB-Gyn Chair’s Cash Window

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Sad to tears, not bubbly, ordered as all in Madison, outpatient by Elizabeth Karlin, internist, later a bullet-proof vest abortion provider.

Bar at East Capitol Road

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My friend, drunk, spoke to me / outside a bar where we hung out; / and his eyes were red from tiredness,

The Majesty of the Infinite

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The other night at work, some kid was in for swallowing a snail's shell. He was nine and, according to the computer, did not have cognitive insufficiency. That last bit was probably put there to make us all not feel guilty about laughing at him.

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 Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 12

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Frank was happy to leave the art show and take the train back to SoHo.

A Life of My Own - 8

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I'm not sure if he's right or not but he has a gorgeous smile, he's charmingly self confident, and he's very persuasive.

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…

On Deciding Not to Be a Bitch

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Deny yourself that pleasure For my sake; that feeling beyond measure That you get when you finally, and with much angst, Decide not to be a bitch, to a round of general thanks.

Atrocities

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My table offers up the gutted calf/ with carrots and potatoes yanked / alive and whole

How to Tell if Your Loved One Belongs in the Booby Hatch

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It is well known around town that Ray's dad went crazy. Today, when asked, everyone will tell you that they knew all along he had a screw loose, told their wife, “That Mick Borkowski's gone bat-shit.” But when it was happening, no one paid it any…

In the Air Tonight

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But that last night in Europe, getting ready to fly out of Amsterdam back to the States, I heard this Phil Collins song, “In the Air Tonight,” which expressed some of the turmoil and confusion and whole-life hysteria I was feeling inside. Waves of fru

Kandie Contretemps

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She sat in a tall chair and there was only one time in the interview that she took her sunglasses off. She didn't really take them off, but just pulled them down for an instant with thumb and forefinger in order to look out at something going past the window. They said…

The Ringlet: Part II

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Ashford Garth Willingsham IV stood looking out at the Gulf of Mexico from his mansion on Longboat Key. In his right hand was a letter from his divorce lawyer, Reynard Foxx...

flash

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okay fine, on the count of three

Pavane

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The shadows hang fast on the downs this day: And I hang like the darkness, over heath and down; Since the air there is clearer than the clouds, men say, And I'm lost in the country, I shall turn to town. If the heather is restless, then the fete is …

EXAMINATION

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I had the idea while I was in the county jail. I would get jail glasses; I wouldn’t be me; I’d be some other person. I could pretend that it was someone else rotting away in that 8x12 cell.

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.

My best

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I don't have time

There They Are! Here They Come!

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“Help us, help us,” the children are saying. “They’ll come back. Help us. They bite.”

Night and Day

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The muezzin calls the faithful, his voice soaring over the rooftops, over the trees and the brooks,

1 col 24 point heading here

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I had ink for blood then and “the news” was my oxygen.

These Babies I'm Not Having

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They're haunting me with every spotting. They're convincing me they'd be the unexpected blessing. They're confusing me when I look at my already-children, taking on the shape of this one's face, that one's gestures. We've been…

Begonia {part seven}

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Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh; the rhythmic thrust of Mezereon’s wings…Th-Bumm, th-bumm, th-bumm; the drumming of his heart…Hooou, hooou, hooou; the exhalations of his breath…

“Honestly, I’m Not a Fan of Your Poetry”

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I will admit it. // I cannot write poetry / to save my life—

Heads or Tails

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The man next door came over with a pitchfork.

On the Anniversary of My Grandfather's Passing

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What I remember about my grandfather were his fart jokes. When he wasn't telling us kids about how young David defeated the mighty Goliath or how Saul the pharisee humbled himself to become Paul the Apostle, he was telling us about the baby burp that begg

Face to Face

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The face had become a chilling death mask.

Edward Ogle the Ninth

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Vanilla bean trampoline