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Lost and Found

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list: almond message oil almond sunset tea dark chocolate 80% dry rhubarb soda lavender bath oil musk candles red light bulb

Margaret & Beak Discuss Jazz for The Last Time

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He lit a slim, brown cigarette and drew on it. "But have you heard the flugelhorn? I mean, have you heard a particularly adept flugelhorn?"

Forgiving the Governor of South Carolina

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(Originally appeared in Fourth Genre, April 2011) The waiting room of the Rosenfeld Cancer Center in Abington, Pennsylvania is my new home away from home, and I'm eager to prove it. When I step on the ridged, black rubber welcome mat and the sliding…

Scratch

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'That November I washed my hair with rabbit's blood -"

My Shasta Daisy

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I lay on grass warmed by the sun Somehow the breeze finds Its way between my toes I gaze at your beauty Standing alone in between Blades of green grass Is Shasta My Daisy I watch you dance As the wind teases and blows I watch you stand tall …

Her father's job

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“We don’t drop litter. Pick it up.”

The New World Act

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It was said that in order to decrease population— and thus poverty, crime and the growing uneducated workforce in Etherage, New World— they needed to limit, if not abolish, the Social Reform Act of 2013 that provided government assistance and aid to famil

Late November

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“I found a recipe on the net and now my hair smells of pumpkin.”

A Wee Noggin - Paddy Whacker's Challenge

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On the eve of celebrating their patron saint at the public house, one of his particularly cabbaged mates was bold enough to ask him about his cranial deformity.

Breaking Dawn

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This is where he died, she says to me, and points to the damp pavement. Her hair is wet, and slicked against her neck. The humidity is making everything engulf her. The sleep shorts I bought her last July are loose on her now, but between the rain and

The Empty City - Chapter 1 - Early Summer

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Every day the trains transported the young and successful and the not so young and less successful who belonged to the five buildings.

French Kiss

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The date began badly...

Living Guilt-Free in These United States

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Back when Richard was still skinny and mean, we fought at The Island. He broke a pool stick over my head. I bruised more than his ego. We fought over a woman, as always. We were best friends and that’s what we did. W

The girl, whose hair was red, green and yellow

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There were trees where I lived and clean pavement

Good Country. People.

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Initially, she had no hopes about his impending arrival, scrawny as he was, until realizing that, because he was a boy, because he was new around here, he might want to wrestle.

The Getting of Ignorance

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It was too late to be eponymous. I was happy enough to be an emulator. But even then, my ideas were nothing but re-runs of re-runs. Like a high-school production of Macbeth.

My Voyeur Life

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It's the way an earnest five-year-old boy pronounces every single letter as he whispers. Something about octopuses, something else about peas.

The Way Home

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I’m in the Grand Central Station bar-- the one at the top of the stairs-- waiting for my husband to enter so I can watch him. The bar is crowded, everyone getting in that last beer before heading back to whiney children and tired spouses.

5” X 6” In A Sturdy Frame

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The first morning we met—I remember the rain, soft the way I like it—was a series she later attributed as a fourteen-frame sunrise.

His Days

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I thought to tell him I do not love raspberries, but blueberries, but he did not attend to the things I loved.

Calypso

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For here in the vortex are no other laws, Than separate towards you I and skirting stone- To wards where wavelets purr against their pause A moment more, to yawn to omicron… Inside the seashell orchard's whirl-quick floor- Come all at once to me or…

Ethics

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I was good-looking, marketable and ambitious. And that never hurt anyone cracking it big ...

Ukiyo

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It’s true enough my status as honorary male has come in handy in my profession, but I never considered matters of the flesh. I feel a surge of warmth between my thighs as if a cock is dangling there, thick and florid. The sensation is oddly exciting.

Coffee

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I hate walking into restaurants and cafes by myself to meet someone. I always feel awkward, as if no one will claim me. I'm hanging on the threshold now for an agonizing few moments scanning the room until I see my friend.“Hi!” she says, waving her cup at…

Children are always beautiful

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“Your children are beautiful,” she said, handing back his wallet after removing several bills. Her mouth was fringed by bitten-off melon lipstick, a calm kind of mad. She told him to call her Sally, “like the song McCartney rips his lungs on.” She…

Chinese Noodle Soup

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Is: soozly, soggly, 'shrooms and shrimp, chickens and eggs-dropped, skinny brown smooths,snappyish peas and humblestumblingin hothappy broth.
 
 These flinging…

Dream of Burying My Grandmother Who Has No Grave

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We buried her upright, in the stance of warriors.

The Undertakers of the Dead by Unseen Hands(Young Poet at the Bus Stop with Some new Vinyl in his Hand)

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"The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.'--Nadine Gordimer Other things do matter just as much of course. Of course they do. Hey I'm still kind of alive inside this poem here. At least I'd like to think so, so yes another…

Role

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The pieces of bread dipped us humans in cheese, the cheese made by cows from our milk.

Halloween

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"For God's sake," my mother said. "There could be anthrax in the candy." My mother worried about me going out on Halloween.