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Broken

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I rang the doorbell. Claire opened the door, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I opened my arms to give her a big hug. She stiffened and pulled away. Stunned, my lips parted, but I couldn’t think of a single word to say. Ideal, Phillis. ”Broken”, Pure

The Old Man

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The old man tied his black tie and put on a black beret. His bones hurt, but at ninety-two it was to be expected.

Main Street

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You know when you see the flashing blue lights in your rearview mirror that you're not being pulled over because of a busted taillight or carelessly doing fifty in a thirty-five mile an hour school zone; your crime is being a Black man behind the wheel. It happens often…

Attacking Panic

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I'm panicking trying to think of the next line in this poem

Пушкин и Baudelaire, via странников

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—but night does not reduce me to sleep / the dragging minutes keep awake / the dark that only opens its deep . . .

confetti

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i’ve started writing these things down on blue-lined notebook paper or really anything i can get my tendonitis-ridden hands on.

Blackballed

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When I was a small child, my father was just barely a man, and he was independently wealthy. So it didn't matter that he was an adolescent inside. There was never any mention of "working." No notion of career. Just the girl he knocked up and the amusing…

The Quiet-Minded One

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Oh, wait — loosen the ropes, you say? Sorry. Can't do that.

No. 6 Kleingemainergasse

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As it was, she was on a mission to get back and either close the chapter or re- open it on her former lover. Something was curiously drawing her to him. She was frank with the man on the plane. He understood. When they deplaned on the tarmack in a snowsto

He'd Risen Up

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“Where did this come from?” Greenblatt snapped as he pulled a pamphlet from his coat pocket with the words “Jews for Jesus” on it.

With Torture Banned, US Tries High School Awards Night

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“He’s a tough nut,” says CIA officer Marlon McGrath. “He says he’ll die a martyr rather than crack before we get to the Booster Club award for outstanding female athlete.”

Mom #2

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We’d sometimes find my mother asleep in her chair outside her trailer at the nudist camp when we drove up. She loved her garden there, even with the rabbits eating her young tomato plants. She used to coax the bluebirds down to the railing of her trailer

Where in daytime nothing is

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I had imagined what it must be like / out there in the middle place

When the Meat Puppet Meets the Meat Lady

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Diamonds are for suckers Diamonds are for the miserable at heart Keep that in mind when you are busy Puffing out your chest and Slipping on your dancing shoes We were about to witness the release of souls From the captivity of flames At th

The Prom Queen and the Quarterback

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Friday night, a bar downtown, beneath the swirling dots of disco lights, seated at a table by the door, I come across a Cheerleader from my high school days, having a Martini with the Quarterback she married. Even in forgiving light, …

Testament Part 2 of 6

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One must learn to give the Bull the things/ it needs: space, grass and grain, his mates/ and offspring, and elude the things/ its momentary fury wants- your death

Fish Tales

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Billy's days were much like his yesterdays, with little hope the ones to come would be any different.

Barbed Wire

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The end of love is a rusty barbed-wire fence.

Botanical Maneuvers

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They hunger for new real estate/ and those resources underground

Six Hours

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My cell phone shakes; it’s my father’s voice calling my name - so far away - with long distance crackle and panic on the line.

The World Passing By On a Double-Decker Tourist Bus in NYC

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They’ve got the tourists On the top deck of the bus Wrapped up in large yellow Plastic garbage bags Riding through the City in the rain The yellow bags flapping in the wind Yelling in the numerous languages At the top of the world The to

Driving in Jeddah

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In suburban Jeddah magnificent houses on every corner of the avenues are surrounded by high walls rising up from just inside the roadside curb to much beyond taller than a man.

Field of Rattle

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He puts the briefcase on the sand and removes a pistol.

4 short shorts

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How to remove moon stains from slacks!?

Affair

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No clouds No rain

Love in Miniature

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Hole #1 – Loop-de-Loop A piece of metal curved into a loop like a curlicue off-ramp. Jake and I step up to the Golf-O-Rama mat like accidental twins. My ball is half blue and half orange, like a gas station freebie. The old man at the desk said I

Excerpt: Reykjavik: A Novel

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2. Reykjavík - 1986 …

Colors of the Last Bright Morning

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I am a housekeeper at a private women's college in upstate New York.

I never.

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contemplatedshredding lettersfrom mybelated betterscauterizingsevered tethershorizoningmy ruffled feathers

of love and death

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- I wish I were taller. - You also wish I never die.- What´s your point?- Santa Claus must really hate you.------ What´s the most ridiculous thing someone´s ever asked you?- Please never die. - But you promised!------ I just want to go to sleep, I´m…