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Picture of You: Song

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Here’s a picture of you Lit up by the internal light Of the moon. It was a Super moon that night And the story of God Had not been told And we had to wait a good Long time to hear it out in the cold And I was the King of Fishers

Honey Nut Cheerios and Chocolate Milk

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Charley calls to say he hasn't heard from me. The blinds are gone, so I take a lipstick off the living room table and draw a circle around his head. I make a half-circle for his gut, a squiggle for the telephone cord. He can come over, he says, just to …

33 and a 1/3

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I've been in Tucson two days, and so far most of my conversations with my father have taken place while I crane my neck and squint into the sun. I scream up, he screams down. He needs to fix the leaky roof before the rainy season, he says.

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

The Roman Twin

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Reverend Peter Roman could stand it no more. He stopped his speech. He felt a fire burning through him, a hatred for humanity and all the weaknesses of beings not perfect before God. He stood a long while, staring at the congregation. Then, he slowly spok

Samurai Kitteh

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She did not know the passage of time, for she was just a bedraggled little kitty, but she stayed behind the lattice for many rising and settings of the Sun.

Action she feels as folly, I respond

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Once a friend asked me to write about rape in an email, so I wrote that it is a weapon of war that would not work here because partners do not give in to it; in fact, they would say it is infidelity in relationships.

BACK IN THE USSUSSUSSR

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It was on the Fake News today, Oh boy They built a bridge from Alaska to Siberia Called the Bridge Over Troubled Waters Instead of a wall And Putin came riding bareback on a pink unicorn Into the White House and renamed it The White Horse,

Reduced

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There I was at the OPEN HOUSE. It was easy, three doors down. The sign on the lawn said, PRICE REDUCED. The real estate lady said, “Back again? Thinking of buying”? I laughed. There were several couples there. People have…

Pitch Meeting

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Someone shoved over a table. A little girl started crying.

Mo Band Names

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Her Majesty’s Glasses Umbilical Chord Linger Finger Okay Inkjet The Dragon Flies Horny Free Spirit Good Footnote Buttery Clams You’reUp Empty Bladder Star Butter Karmic Impulse Mr. On-the-Ve

Pebbles Against Empire

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Whatever you have,/ we can monetize it

Postcards from a Private Park

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First movement I. The town that I…

What Momma Draws on Windows

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...the woman of the sun, twelve stars around her head, the moon at her feet.

Rubber Chains

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He turned metal chains to rubber with the force of his mind. He prepared tacos for the paperboy.

Notebook (excerpt)

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I try as much as I can to write but only in as much as you believe―am I successful.

Of Alleys & Ivory

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“You think it’s a self-castrating suicide note or a self-righteous freedom speech?” “Probably just the ramblings of a madman, pissed he lost a company baseball game.” “Fuckin-A, Pete! Double-murder suicide for a baseball game? Ain’t nobody that craz

The Campus Socialists

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The Campus Socialists Paul and Mary Jo lived in an apartment at the top of a long, dark flight of stairs that were so high, I remember as if it were yesterday thinking, the night she pushed him down the stairs, he would surely be dead by the time h

Dina Goes to Belfast

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Dina was a woman obsessed. She had endured a three hour layover in Chicago and another four in Heathrow for this. (The flight she had enjoyed with a few glasses of red and an HGTV show about plumbing that she could watch again and again.) She had staked out this corner of…

To Christine, Whom I Loved Because Another Would

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She was from Tennessee, with advantages over me. An upbringing surrounded by books and sensitivity.

my apartment needs more culture

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the first night we visited/ i stepped on a splinter/ while walking to the car/ and half-limped back,/ hiding a wince.

bucket of keys

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I imaged him at his mother's house, eating chicken and tabouli with her at her round marble table, leaning back and laughing, then reading my “love you” and excusing himself to cry in the bathroom.

All Wet

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the small break of consciousness that is my dreamswaterso much wateri can never forgive the watertoo many tears

The Invention of a Curse Word

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I saw his face

Night Flight

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I heard them calling my name. “Will passenger Karen Anderson please come to flight desk Six Fourteen? Flight 912 is ready for takeoff. This is your last call.” “Mario, did you hear that?” I asked. “We’re on the wrong plane!”

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 14

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“Gentlemen, how could I go about attracting the KGB?” Now that got the attention of Boris and Vladimir. Their eyes bulged right out of their heads. They both started huffing and puffing. “What are you, crazyman or something?” said Boris. Vla

And You--And You--And You

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“Good to see you, old man,” Greg said. He was like that, an investment banker, a latter-day Tom Buchanan without the polo ponies, self-consciously fusty.

My Flying Debris

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a book of 5 poem-like things I made out of silly string and shot your way when you weren't exactly looking "..kisses are a far better fate/than wisdom."--E.E.CummingsContents:1.The Day's Thin Blue Swim-Suit2. The One Who Needed Let In Most3. I…

Into the Mystic

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Writing opens doors to perception. For example, the glockenspiel smells of gardenias, but the catwalk is opening a can of Franklin stove. It emits fumes of fairyland and olive. And in the green and pleasant country of Scotland and England, vintage trains go…

Nocturnes

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You go out on a night with no moon, when all the stars are flush in the sky, when all of everything, even you, is just a shadow moving softly, and I swear, you can hear it, if you listen hard enough. The music. It’s like it’s coming from under the ground.