1403 14 8
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In the evening the curtain recounts its day. Faces, images, incidents it has observed from the window. Its voice is nuanced, modulated, quivering, for it is made of lace. It appears to crochet its words with needle sounds. My eyes, during confinement, are not wide open, not…
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140344
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It was that special ache between heart and stomach that made me stop things. That ache that cannot be caused by the mere knowledge that you have steered your life into a completely wrong direction. To feel this pain, you also need to have no clue why and how it…
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140311
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On his way to his first fishing expedition in the Bay Area, the man remembered the rustle and shimmer of the willows by the muddied Jemez River in New Mexico, cold beer, the clean camaraderie of childhood friends. He walked along a path choked with greenery to the San Pablo…
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140321
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Did I refer to Mark Twain’s typewriter as an animal? Did I call it a hyena? I would not say that about Mark Twain’s typewriter.
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140345
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I sat at
the vast graveyard
of broken hearts
on the mending fence
of wonderment
unsealing the silence
of the wounds
I began to put the pieces
together
like a puzzle against
forgetting
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140332
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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.
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140300
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Betty had been looking for a distraction; the lawsuits were out of control. Her last nonprofit, Faith and Life Children's Organization, had run into some difficulties due to the recession and the obvious result of trying to do more with less. Why couldn't people…
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140321
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Jade in the emperor’s death
mouth – to the grave – all openings
closed – no breath – no air – no life
to enter to leave – the end should
be silent – you stop my mouth
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140341
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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?
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140231
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The BBC's “Sherlock” is among the most popular shows on TV, and there has been much speculation among die-hard fans like myself about what the upcoming fourth season will hold. Having consulted my own crystal ball, here's what I see happening: Irene…
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140284
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1402147
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Through the Walmart parking lot
they came...
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140240
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"Well, you certainly can't be marrying him then .. "
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140221
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Everyone is tromping around in work boots like an army of happy gardeners. The park is smiling from all this attention, from the sound of kids who think work is play. It's not even sunny but we don't mind. I know you don't. Grey days are just as good. They've…
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140281
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Buck, naked, has no words. The best he can manage is a dopey strangulated cough. His wife, who is clothed, stands before him, next to the waterbed that took Buck half a day to force into the trailer.
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14021714
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After Slick Daddy — aka Billy Ray Thompson — gave up driving his log truck and took up with playing and singing the blues full-time he was what you might call a hot property around the juke joints along Highway 61. The women didn't seem to mind…
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140200
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I remember screaming and wanting to run from the living room that time you came home drunk.
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140221
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It was night. It was Massachusetts. It was an interview in a snowstorm
that Detective Vivian Diaz wished would go away.
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140220
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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 …
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140233
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No, your clever costume won’t protect you.
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140211
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I went back to the Charles Bridge over the Vltava River and felt the plaque of the Wall of Gropers, and that was where we hatched our plan, in front of my ancestors. I could just feel their presence there. They would be with me, the Gropers of Prague.
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140211
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I blame you for my short temper when I go off the handle when my blood runs cold and I can't think straight I can only react. When I say things I don't mean Even if I do. But I am glad for the fire you started inside of me. That time I…
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140221
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The girl lifts my head, and I sit up straight once again. She hands me a pair of old work gloves, helps put them on my swollen hands. She wipes my face with a wet, warm towel. Her thin arms tremble. She cries. I cry.
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140240
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She had endured three years of abuse for those hot, fleeting moments of tenderness—just enough warmth to keep her second-guessing the bitter frost. Now the ring promised a lifetime of biting back her pain.
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140287
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In the quiet dark, fathers reappear.
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140232
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Lying in the blissful glow of young television.
Idly sleeping, eyes open and ears closed.
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140200
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“You sure?” He nods. “Maybe it was pneuomonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.” Flash of a smile, sobbing laughter, like an abandoned seal.
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140121
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Where are you going, boy who never was?
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140100
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For so long as I think I shall live.
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140121
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Okay, I’ll admit it, the earth was shaken on the world's underside, when you left for California. And I sometimes slept on the shores of Lake Michigan and Fox River for your tremendous thousand years’ charisma. To say I cried out in pain would be lettin
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