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you are the stem that rises

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In my dream I am the showy leaf, and you are the stem, and you are the strength. I am the leaf turning colors, my face flushed, the fine hair at my neck, and there is the deep carnal twisting around your stem that sends me floating to the ceiling over a

A mere second is enough...

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This was why the man on the bicycle was still in time to turn his head to her because he thought it was his sister who lived in California, because she wore the same jacket and in his inattentiveness almost ran over another cyclist.

The Giver and The Gone

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They were once a crown,of some living stag -- not quite old,not quite young: now bone. Something at the cusp of its age. Here they stand, given by a loved friendon a place in my home; smelling, whenI get very close, of time. They are shaped like small…

moon/light

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the cue & flash

Change of Heart

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They pumped him full of electricity and waited.

Five

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"It all began with a painting," I said. "Mostly blue. Acrylic. Naturalistic in a modern sense. She was stylized but recognizable, and her breasts were exposed. Everyone could see her disordered skirt. The painter was a fan of Herrick.

Danse Macabre

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Between the commercials, the local news is rampant with fusillade of bullets going raving mad, driven by some Machiavellian brainfuck, or bombshells smiling down with angels in black; emoticons of solid metal and pride. But you would put your faith in…

Morning Love Song

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when I said good morning I meant

The Sun from Under Water

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There was a thing she liked to do in the pool—after running and sweating—and that was to exhale as much air as she could stand, then hold her nose and sink to the bottom and just look up at the surface of the water, the way the sun hit it, the way the liq

OCTOBER 22nd

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A young officer approached the lawn where Shane was picketing with friends. All from middle-class neighborhoods, none considered "troubled," they were beginning to learn that obeying the law wasn't always enough . . .

DOMA Do-Do

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His smartphone rang. A picture came up of him kissing the blonde.

Bendable

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“You're bendable,” he said, and then there was this silence as we looked into the space in front of us. I understood what he meant right off and thought it a gift to speak to someone that did not get the words exactly right, but in not doing so, got…

black

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my soul is black and it's deep like heartbreak and heavy as stone and as thick as ink and it is pressing on top of me like last nights one night stand like dead weight so that I can't lift my arms or spread my legs it feels like I am walking through mud but it's…

Forevergrad

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The man was sitting at his makeshift kitchen table. He was forty-five years old. He wore his mortarboard with tassel whenever he left his home. Once inside either a reputable establishment or one generally considered less so, he was sure to take off his m

Five Million Yen: Chapter 33

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This will take forever. I’ll never get to Antibes to meet Isabella, much less make it to Marseille to deliver the picture and then catch the overnight train to Paris. I may have to call Jean-Claude Lyon, the orchestra manager of the Monte Carlo orchestra,

Denis Johnson

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How strangely perfect it is To see this man memorializedAn author, so I'll always cheerThough I haven't yet read his worksA secret perhaps best keptThe shame of an English major, the shame of a friendHow strangely perfect it is To read even the names paying…

DIVINE EROS

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I drink the funeral in a dream. I give satisfaction in voice overs.

Punkin Head

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The old neighborhood, long paling in the shadow of greater Los Angeles, was reduced to two blocks in length and occupied only one side of Figueroa. It was the crumbling bastian of homes whose architecture remembered yet street-car bells clanging, watermelon farms and…

Feb 5

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He peels the garlic while I stir the lentils; he chops the cilantro while I peel kale leaf from stem. Also, the rings. Also, no one is going anywhere.

Saint Basil's

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The last of the Kazan Tatar Khans. Each dome represents a severed head.

The Turning

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A brief colorful season/ and then the fall as winds/ break the hold the leaves have

No Alternative

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whoosh

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i learned all

Five Million Yen: Chapter 63

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Gringovitch sat on the big leather chair in Olivia’s suite. Before him on a coffee table were the nude sketches he’d made of her earlier that day.

Elegy for the Sun

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When winter comes again…

War Bride

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Maria met her husband in World War Two. Maria is now eighty-two. She is from the country of Tuscany. She has lived in may countries. She was a war bride. She has a son. Maria's son is sixty-three. As a baby-boomer he won't retire until sixty-five Maria says.…

Angels and Inspiration

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It was then an angel was sent to provide assistance and guidance. After the first time, with the radio show, the woman could almost feel her presence. When she did not know what to do, or needed help or to encourage others, when her own will and words wer

Bell Ringer

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Zal’s first day on the job they had 16 customers. They took turns crying, “Bring out your dead!”

full moon over econolodge on I-70

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There was no hope for the writing desk. Even if it had not been for the splintered leg held together only by duct tape, there was no way Ron could have fit into the back of the station wagon with the rest of the luggage. He asked the Mexicans across the s

Five Million Yen: Chapter 71

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It was that awkward time when one didn’t know if the night’s lover wanted to see you again.