Most read stories

Nan Sequiter

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there was no mess she couldn’t manage, / no chaos she couldn’t tame.

Fall

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You fall with your eyes closed because otherwise you wouldn't dare.

What'd You Do This Weekend?

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Sometimes your Monday morning answer to the inevitable questions don't have to be so mundane and repetitive. And sometimes they do. No one gives a shit anyway.

Female Scent-Marking in the Suburbs

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We watched through the plate glass window, like kids watching a mother guppy eat her young. A woman approached the sweaters but stopped suddently, as if she sensed the dark force Darth Vader projects in Star Wars movies.

Snowflake 632565000012

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YES, YES, Dismiss.

Dinosaur

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All of the students’ eyes were fixed on him, and now Nelson was embarrassed. It’s not that he didn’t want to pay attention. He already knew the answer to this book. But he wouldn’t dare tell the rest of the class or Mrs. Edwards.

Eyeball

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"Here's the bad news: you have to wear a patch over your eye for the next six weeks."

Our Enormous Fat Man

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Pity would have been appropriate. Yet, townsfolk whispered behind his back. Shouldn't he do something about it. So lazy. A gluttonous swine. Hadn't his mother kept him too long at tit, breastfeeding ‘til four? Look. Look at him now. A fat man. Our enormou

In the Life

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You had autumn in your hair I liked the way you sat at a table And drank champagne My past years have carried me To sixteen countries Christ, we have so much to share Listen, I know how the other half lives And we can’t live like that an

My Nashville Song

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I smell ham and biscuits I ain't eatin' Triscuits No more No more, no more Gonna get back on my Harley With my mutt named Bisquick Charlie I just ain't eatin’ Triscuits No more, no more And I heard you know the score Yeah, I know you

Mom Dream, from the Family Album

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She was trying to hold something, gathering in … lips blue/ black, saying: “I’m all right.” I remember her telling me, over the phone one time: “It’s a baby rabbit, and he was having a picnic. He was chewing away and chewing away. I had six tomato pla

Award Season

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I made the List!

man running from a bar

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A man alone in his paid-for living room, with his hands folded behind his head. A man running from a bar, a bald man seen from behind. Someone who made a wide circle to avoid your laughter. A man undressing at the side of the road saying: “How y

Ponchatoula Tulip

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You could call it love.

Village Life Brochure

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I live in a small fishing village where small people fish and others gossip or invent bizarre methods by which to irritate each other. During our weekly power cuts I go outside and cross the street, sitting on the pharmacy steps to watch myself not be at home in the…

That Was Then, Not Now

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Memory is unreliable, of course-/ re-coloring savored scenes-/ paler here, more saturated there-

and I am not with you, anymore

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Dancing at the pavilion leads to sex. A nectar builds up around the heart (damp curl of hair at the neck.) The heart does not know what it cannot have. It is dumb and does not know. But I, for one, hope that it never learns and becomes numb. There i

Handicapping the Saints

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I've been a fan of hagiography—the lives of the saints—since first grade when Claude Dunham and I were asked to represent St. Stephen and St. Sebastian, two martyrs of the early church, in a tableau vivant of bored boys.

Estonia

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Estonia wore a liver milagro charm on a thin piece of rawhide around her neck and slept with her teeth in a jar. She was dreaming as she often did of the four children she conceived in Mexico. They had  been born in bright colors and dust. Her first child Nina…

13 phantasmagoric floats appearing in the Bird King's Chimeric Carnival

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1. Days of InnocenceFluorescent maggot men dance the flamenco.2. The Eyes of MedusaPythons and immobile pole dancers in grey body paint.3. GolgothaA drunken mechanical Christ grinds your bones to make his bread.4. Big Ape BollocksAlpha males slug it out in a cage made of…

Prayers and Lotteries

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“What if every cloud you saw carried a bit of hope?” she said to the window, looking out at a rolling storm. There's something peaceful about stormy weather when you're inside. Stormy weather. It almost sounds quaint. “Well?” she said,…

Bitter the Sun When It Is in Hades

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Bitter the sun when it is in Hades High fans meaning nothing keep the heat down but the nitre keeps burning So glows the gloss and high sheen on the skin Foreheads exhibit thought though the eyes are crossed and at night, butterflies i

The Spectacle of Freedom

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It had been almost a week since the “last time.” That's what he had shouted at Eduardo after they had returned the boat, after they had watched the mother walk free onto the mainland, childless. The authorities had caught up with them unusually quickly,…

What Happened To The Rain Dance?

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The water quality will give you a hint

Don't Let Bears Give You a Headache

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You think about bears and it gives you a headache? Don’t give them that power. You see bears and it gives you a headache? Don’t run. Don’t walk but don’t run.

Giving Birth to the World

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Life's a contradiction.

Drowning

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I found Mathew face down, cold and ridged like a plastic doll. I had overslept because he never cried—never told me he was hungry. Rodney had to peel my arms from around my son so the paramedics could take him in a blaze of flashing red and white lights.…

Let's All Go Down to the Rising River

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As the pastor of a small southern church, I'm often asked by our younger members about this prickly notion of global warming. They herd around me, as adolescents are prone to do, and they ask me, “Dear father, is this something that we should fear, these…

Other Verities

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He who is well hydrated, won't sweat you

Return to the Magic Tree House

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“You can't smoke in here, Jack,” his father said. “Your mother will kill me.” Those were the first words spoken as the pair rode in silence from Chester County. Jack pulled the unlit cigarette from his mouth and tucked it above his ear. …