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Startled by Towels

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I woke up when the smoke alarm insisted. Either the curtains were on fire or I hadn't changed the battery.

who really wants to be a virgin anyway?

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I remember thinking virginity was highly over-rated. Who really wants to be a virgin anyway? I got out of that state as fast as I could. Sixteen years (okay maybe 15 and a half) is long enough of not knowing what to do with your body. Screw that! But th

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Then I am in Washington DC impersonating an accountant.

Mercury Unbound - 2

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An infested, indifferent universe . . .

Five Stories About Inexperienced Youth

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1. Pharmacy Randy approached the counter. It appeared that the only person in the pharmacy was the pharmacist himself, Mr. Crubby, and from the sound of the stiff white bag crumpling he was busy saving someone's life, or at least ameliorating someone's …

Five Million Yen: Chapter 15

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There was a motley assortment of customers in the restaurant. Mostly casually dressed young men and women who looked like freelancers of some persuasion.

rewind...

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here’s the deal… sorrow follows tears… pain later for the happiness now… is the joy something we only borrow…?

Boise Poetry Slam

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The boy buckled in and told his mom, “No mommy, I can do it myself”

Dramarama and Acid Wash Jeans

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Looking down you wonder, when did I eat pineapple? and Am I really this awesome or am I a facsimile of something that really sucks, even if it's that 'it's so bad it's good' kind of thing? Nope, it's just bad.

Meticulous

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Have you measured the cups, the conveyors' yield? Do you know the span? I am the LORD your God, she murmured.

Lullaby for a Dragon Baby (for Josephina TuTu Waring)

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Lullaby for a dragon baby who breaks the bough with bottled fists escapes the armored cradle stealing swords from terra cotta men to slash the Ming canopy and loose the butterflies that will free Ho Chi Minh from the fire.

60 is the new 20

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I once saw a TV commercial that showed a group of Anglo retirees laughing around a card table. The slogan 60 is the new 20 floated beneath their fat, fun-loving heads. My parents are bona fide Baby Boomers. Their lives are build on credit and catchy…

Zin Is Not a True Vegetarian

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She wakes up lip-syncing the remnants of a dream: the throb of cherry blossoms, the whine of lotus flowers.

Dear Mei

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I planned and planned. I followed the veterinarians around and I took vials of panda tranquilizers when they were not looking, and it was often that they forgot to look. The earth kept shaking, they were hungry, and many did not know what had become of th

A Broken Frame

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The photograph has no date,but these are my long-ago kin,ancestors just before the boat,six stone-faced on the English shore,sepia on cardstock under glassstill clear in severe, dark clothesexcept one who has been markedout, maybe with black wax,which runs to the bottom…

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.

A Cool Dry Place PART 1

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There are times when she is heavy and times when she is light.

Living in the Death Industry Could Kill You; The Q&A

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Q: Tell me briefly about how you got into the death industry.

Virgo

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I said he was cold. I said I like cold.

Shame On 34th Street

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This tanka poem was inspired by news report that the Macy's of "Miracle on 34th Street" fame has a white Santa in front and a black Santa in back.

Goodbye Uncle Jack

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He fought off the U-boat packs in the Atlantic — one hand on the tiller, one on the torpedo launch button.

A little bit of babysitting

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Roy Williams was his real name. It had been for the last 15 years. Since retiring from the Firm he’d lived innocuously in an apartment near the Old City walls of Dubrovnik doing the occasional quick job for them. You never entirely retired from the Firm.

The New Girl

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She’s new, with the enthusiasm of a new person. And everyone wants the new girl.

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…

the genes of Edouard Manet

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was entering into a new phase of its existence, a peculiar paradigm of the wider world where, presaged by science, economic and political ideologies were conspiring to displace the old verities of religion and aesthetics, but where…

Sourballs

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Lights of human occupation burn/ in patterns like the growth/ of a bacillus, lethal and prodigious,

Incivility for Breakfast

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I gently honked my horn and gave her the kind of friendly neighbor wave that only friendly neighbors can give. She didn’t wave back. What the hell is her problem?

PROMISES

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There was a bird on the windowsill, a sparrow, its silhouette backlit by a view of Uptown. She remembered many sparrows during her forced trips to Mercy Hospital...That was all over now...

Video from Cairo

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The view from the tenth floor of Ramses Hilton hotel was depressing. A restless crowd undulated between the wrecks of tanks and armored cars. JOURNALIST: Hey! I’m dying here, and you admire the views?

bloodletting and the strobe of hearts

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the injured color wheel of the world