Most read stories

If Hell...

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the sour waft of a secret

People

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Good kid. Awesome job in big cities. Travels a lot. Enjoys Martinis and G&T. She's a romantic. Spends her time online trolling people into submission. Likes softcore porn. Sets cats on fire. Collects stamps.

Flowing, Flown

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Flowing, Flown In the field stands a jealous man with fifteen eyes stored inside the cuffs of well-worn khaki pants. His pockets pull with clinking dimes…

Paulie in Albuquerque

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Savvy as a nine-year-old playing poker with high rollers in Las Vegas, that was Paulie. She'd finally thrown Dick Weasel out the night before, but that morning Diana'd shot down their plan of sharing the house in a “man-free”…

140 Words on Solitude and Being Alone

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As a child I drowned myself in the pages of books, and as a writer I prefer to be left alone with my imagination.

Ghost Story

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They come to wipe themselves from my memory, but that, of course, is impossible. In this place, we are bound together, the long line of men who have killed me, and I.

A Dutiful Daughter

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The first indication I had of what I look like came when a man put me back on the rack, remarking that I was too pink. Over the weeks that followed, I gained a few more ideas about my appearance from the comments of people in the shop. My photographic side had been…

About That Leg

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I could have said no. I should have said no. Prudence, however, was not in the air. Fourteen minutes later I am at the door of his condo a few blocks from Pier 39. Twenty minutes later I have wriggled into his extra wetsuit and am following him on his wif

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

On Learning a Lover Died a Suicide

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I got the news that you had died as I was eating American chop suey, watching the Celtics.

Erasing the Modern World

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An electromagnetic pulse/ scrubbed the servers./ The clouds wisped and blew away, empty./ Markets lost what little mind they had.

The Cure for Cancer

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Thus, more people can drown// and leave their bones

Monogamy

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cummings starts to sniff, his usual routine. He feigns aloofness while raising one wolfy leg to pee on Eliot's sneakers.

Husband Googles Travel Zoo

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When you need a vacation...from everything.

(Younger Driest)

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He did not seek a place on a cabinet, nor to impress stockholders with placards of wealth and return; he did not enumerate the downtrodden and asocial with advertised miracle treatments, or write a best seller on the markings of success. All he did, all h

Flesh

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Here’s to flesh:

Missed connections

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I lost my job but the government found me a new one. Now the government pays me to pretend I’m a travelling businessman. I fly around the country to imaginary meetings. It’s part of a project to make it look like the economy is doing well.

Thessaloniki Summer Visit

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What I learned/one summer/in the North East/Thessaloniki heat was. . . .

BLT

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I had a sister-in-law who was a licensed nutritionist. Not sure what “licensed” means, but she had some certificate and worked in a hospital. Hospitals! Places not known for their cuisine, much less their nutrition. —So, what do you…

Bible Stories for Atheist Babysitters

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What the five-year-old I baby sit for wanted to do yesterday was torture his Barbies. “Why would you want to do that?” I asked.“Because we're bad guys!” said Hanina. “Can't we be good guys?”“Not today. Today we're bad…

Finger Lost Finger Found

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Little Roy Farrell'd taken a bite of his fourth grade teacher's ear as she bent close to help him sound out the word “grace.” Doc Felter had sewn most of teacher's ear back on, but by seventh grade Roy still couldn't read and never understood that he'd in

Pancakes

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I’d look for a fork and quickly stab a piece of it and bite into it, feeling good about the finality of things.

Cardiovascular

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circumstances// squeeze the heart so hard/ that you should die but don’t.

Cairn

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Your cairns/ are litter in the streets

Anger

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Well, now it has fallen away some but I felt better about it when it was raging

Objects in a Field

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Cacophony of an engine-braking eighteen-wheeler/ scatters the crows to fences, trees and wires/ in a startling chant of caw, caw, caw.

Beehive

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Like when she said the word 'but', it came out ‘bet’.

Blue Crabs

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The perfect murder, and it’s not even murder.

Ambassador of Nowhere

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Before you tripped on the third rail, you were like any other: coat a shard of midnight-blue, eyes filled with gratitude but for nothing. You were a lost coyote on a snowy hill. With sad magnificence you wandered, terrorizing passengers who secretly wished to pat your…

Bringing a New Poet into Your Home

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You may want to pretend to leave once or twice, peeking in through a window from a darkened room, to see how they interact. Never leave a new poet unattended with the pack until you’ve determined that the new arrival has learned to fit in with the other w