Most read stories

Blue Dresses

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It makes me feel like a dirty old man: adorning Celia, Making an offering of my blue dresses, adorning Celia.

Tollund Man, one/breakfast, zero

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how enthralled might you be, or how much appalled,/plucked from a fresh dream that had just grown serene?

A Losing Hand

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A group of us from work are playing cards at a friend's house, so when my brother Jimmy calls, I take my phone into the other room. I already know what it's about, really the only reason he ever calls these days.“Look, I hate to ask,” he begins, the way he…

Sisyphus

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I build pedestals.It's hard workHeld together by sweat, love, and lofty thoughts - an unsound foundation.The tiniest bit of heartbreak,and it comes crashing down. Always, I blame the builder and not the vandal. The next one will be…

The Hostage

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My mother should have been a minister or a peace officer. Instead, she was a homemaker who ran the home like an agency. There were certain hard and fast rules.

Untitled (from Postcards from a Railway Station)

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As the silence starts gashing I decide it's the moment to take all my thoughts for a walk; To a sound like a million lightbulbs shutting their fuses I resume my view, Across the sun-strobe streets with blind nightlamps; the safflower sun is lopped on its stalk …

The Light and the Likes of the Moon

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The moon was out. A bouncing ball but suspended. I shall never have a baby, she said. I am not prepared to go through that pain. Also, I for sure would not raise them up if I had them with religion, which is just so much superstition. I'll be a fellow this…

Moving Out

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Lying in the blissful glow of young television. Idly sleeping, eyes open and ears closed.

Here is the thing. No one knows what it (actually) represents

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beyond knowing that when it hits you, you've been very much run over, and flattened like a stack of cardboard pancakes. I've seen it all before, and it works all right I guess. But my oh my, my, my oh thank you Jesus, to…

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

Sauna

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The arid paramour, your breath is hot, dry, cedar. I sweat you corpus fluids and salt and the unnamably impure.

The Forgotten Children...

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His cheeks were extremely pink but the pink was not the shade usually associated with good health, it was the pink of Death.

Pros and Cons of Wildflower Collection

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If it was truly new territory of the mind, he thought he might find some place that resembled the world as his dad envisioned it, having already decided that his father could never turn back across the frontier to the old world of youth

Refugio Beach

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We can’t see anything except for glimpses of the other’s eyes, hands, mouths when we move.

The Etymology of Fun

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Tell people of substance the truth.

Nothing Ever Stays Looking

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The same, some things you Can't explain, most trees Have felt it go bone dry at the roots before. I've learned to let love Go bye bye. You think they don't Want to answer your pathetic knocks, But they're…

Reality TV is Dead

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Welcome to the world of (un)reality television. He/she who dies with the most stories wins. Another kind of religion. The Church of Being Famous For Whatever.

Something about that boy

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There was something about the boy that made me uneasy. Maybe it was the reverse widow's peak on his forehead or the way he wiped away his snot with the back of his hand. It could have been his red flannel shirt that reminded me of the hillbillies from the mountain…

But then you walked out on me

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I watched as you tried to fit yourself quite awkwardly into the small chair. Your eyes fluttered curiously around my house, and I smiled to myself. Your vision landed on my smile, and your face wore an expression of puzzlement."What are you smiling at?" you asked, your…

The Treehouse

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I noticed Sean changed after his grounding. We no longer played night soldiers around the block, no longer biked to the creek to catch crayfish he'd crush with his boots. Sean stopped hunting lizards, stopped charging smaller kids toll to pass…

Off We Go Then

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Wish more than ever there was a more perfect way to mean everything I say. If I could I'd certainly walk all my words right up to your face now and give them over, hand to hand so to speak. That's the point at which I'd very much…

Cause of Death

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“You sure?” He nods. “Maybe it was pneuomonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.” Flash of a smile, sobbing laughter, like an abandoned seal.

September 26, 2016

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whatever weaknesses you displayed// as empathetic human fellow traveler,/ your command of English survives you,// on into the last echoes of the human/ once we’re gone.

Dormilona

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These fern-like weeds grow along the roads. “Watch this,” you say, bending down over a plant. The touch of your fingertip sets it recoiling, stunned–a fun, jungle trick you picked up somewhere along your way.

Diagnosis

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I am studying the way/ dust bunnies emerge, grow/ and apparently reproduce.

Dongs

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[YOU BETTER BE READY FOR THIS!]

by the sound of it

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cicadas run our furnace

Drummer Boy

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A door slams. The vibrations rattle through the floor, up his legs and into his chest. He can hear the yells, and the tears that mar her voice. Rat-ta-tatRat-ta-tat A door slams. Eyes closed while images of a life he will never live flicker on…

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

June Cleaver Faces the Implications of the Integrated Circuit

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The Cleavers were never really undone by anything. Everyone, however, has a limit. June manages it all, as usual, with her characteristic grace, lovely crinoline - and a bit of manipulation.