Most read stories

by the sound of it

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cicadas run our furnace

A Flat Sheet and One Standard Pillowcase

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this is your hair, this is your stare, this is your voice

Rapid Transit

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We’re on The Worm. I dread the part where the train goes under the bay. I hold my breath until we safely emerge.

Like Five O'Clock

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She pulled the book off its shelf. It meant something else now. He'd quote her in the mirror, at the backs of buses that kept her moving, something she'd said without saying. He would remember for them. She'd forget, without him, the way she wanted. Garland and lights were…

Rags to Riches to Rags, 1

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1 Al Capone was ruling the backstreets and alleyways of Chicago during Prohibition, and we lived in a little house right next door to a speak-easy. I could peak through our curtains and see right into the bar next door when cops came in to get pai

Domestic Sketches

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The cats sniff at the small opening,/ one by one, in a furtive casualness./ They think the outside air is sweet

At Sevens

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Originally published on Six Sentences:He walked out of the hotel lobby into the pre-dawn night and thought about another woman, a pretty Spanish woman, not the woman he'd just kissed in a hotel, and a night he'd spent with her in Portugal, wanting each other desperately,…

Lassitude

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It's morning, and the cold black hull of branches sets my resting pier, Amid this drizzle, underneath the poignant pain of birches, wrecked By floods of midyear grieving; wraithlike, Dawn's been becked To paint in shafts of faded rose that shades the fen…

You've Got that Wrong Kind of Brain

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He and Nick got a long very well, and would speak about things for hours until the morning came; and Betsy would supply them with food and coffee, and clever sayings all the while Johnny watched it all over. Tonight though, they had watched La Rafle, and

Talking Balls and Strikes

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I don’t see the problem. In the country I come from, language is the best part of the game.

The Cowboy of My Heart

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I. The cowboy of my heart rides high in the saddle. Behind him, the long tail of his speeding palomino, golden — like the hair to the girls I was later to want so desperately — stands straight out from his sweating, muscular haunches. It's time.…

Good Old Days

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That night, when Nostalgia knocked on my door just before dawn, I had just enough time to catch her coat as she slipped it off and staggered into my apartment.

Blonde on Blonde

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Happens at a party, this way, past frat boys perched in branches like idiot hoot owls,

Now Lay in It

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The phone rang again at midnight. Maury sat straight up in bed, a reflex from his days in the barracks. Linda, his wife, was already sitting up. In the hint of moonlight, she dabbed her nose with a wadded tissue and made helpless little noises. Maury…

The Genius

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"The Genius has since abandoned all hope of seeing full remission of the Great Descending Haze in his lifetime."

We're The Atwoods

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I remember a time when Calvin, my husband, was like Winnie the Pooh and I was a jar of fine Provençal honey. No amount of my sweetness could satisfy his craving for me. He would spread me on his toast with butter at breakfast and mix me with peanut butter

Lady in the Cave

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Life strikes another blow and away I go: back to the cave to sleep, read, write, dream, soothed by rocking chair therapy, spend hours on hours looking at photo memories, lighting incense and candles, crying, howling out the injustices smothering me. …

Icarus

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Rob slogged down First as November winds tore right on through him that Tuesday at four o'clock in the morning, letting him know that he was the only man left on the face of the whole fucking planet. Except for an old, broke,…

1 Good Hubcap

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I got one good hubcap I lost the other 3 I just don’t know What the heck is wrong with me I got one good hubcap As you can plainly see The other 3 were seen Just a-hanging from a tree That’s what must’ve happened When I ran my car ri

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

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Eva stepped out of the hut she and Javier shared and slogged through the mud toward the coop to fetch fresh eggs for Javier's breakfast. None existed. Javier became angry when he didn't get his eggs. Eva slowed her pace as she neared the door. She knew wh

Checking Out

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Minnie looked at her co-worker's nametag. "Destiny," she said to her. That's a pretty name. It suits you. You're an attractive young lady. Is your momma pretty?" "Not like I am," Destiny said as she smoothed her shiny black hair. "I'm honest about it 'ca

Hey, Boys, Bandits!

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I remember one time that summer I was with you (1964) going to a bar in maybe it was Melrose Park, or Northlake, or somewhere along Roosevelt Road closer to Chicago, not as far as Cicero though. I went there with a crazy gear-head named Roger Hudson, wh

Assiduity Eighteen

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A convoy of military vehicles is heading into the city as we are heading out.

Violet Hour

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“My name is Violet,” I add. I am trying to stop lying. Going without cigarettes has been easier.

Message

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When the telephone rang the fallow fields we lay in years ago became distant countries, filled with falling stars. The distant country into which you had disappeared became a pistol with a single bullet in the chamber.

Kafka, Smashed

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perhaps I am only being transported not for replacement but for repair

Isn't It Funny How Some People Don't Think They're Contemptibly Stupid?

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[VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.]

Regina Road

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I took a left, it's less safe

A Girl You Couldn't Hurt

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He started to concentrate on the music again. It was the album with the crazy picture of Monk on the cover, with a machine gun over his shoulder, a tied-up Gestapo officer and a female resistance fighter standing next to—a cow.

Ave Maria: Part 6

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“I swear that man is a force of nature.” This was her mother's way of describing her father whenever her mother came too close to the precipice. While growing up, she could never allow herself to fully acknowledge the meaning behind her mother's…