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Yadda, Yadda, Yaddo

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I arrived at Yaddo, the prestigious artists’ retreat, in the summer of 1941. With America’s “day that will live in infamy” several months away, my own day of infamy began the second morning of my residency.

Hunting the Thylacine

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“Ah, there’s the Tasmanian tiger,” the visitor says in an American accent, maybe midwestern. “It’s called a ‘thyracine,’ right?” “Thylacine, yes.” “Un huh. Thylacine. Extinct now, isn’t it?” “Oh! Let’s hope not

At a loss

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I used to charm you, hold you in my hand.

Literate Reply

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an oven mitt in Dachau

Skyscrapers

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I love to lie when discovered. "I'm your new neighbor." "The landlord sent me." "I'm the ghost of the girl who died on the 11th floor." "I fell from the sky." I wear billowing white dresses and a wide-brimmed straw hat that throws my face into shadow. Peo

Why We Came to Target at 9:58 on a Monday Night

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Donnie remembers just in time. So we run practically every stop sign and red light in town, and get there just before they close.

Surrendering August

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on the far shore, in the vineyards timed charges explode like the sun catching on fire it scares crows away from the grapes

Children

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This was a dream in which I didn’t know fear.

Peeling Onions

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I was in the kitchen peeling onions. They stung my eyes, and perhaps I was crying. I heard my dear husband run into the room and turned with the knife in my hand.

At the Wedding

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I wear a white dress. I vomit on hers.

Fictionaut Is Audited

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Somehow, random phrases and sentences from the stories, comments and profile pages were generated as “replies”.

Mussel Memory

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Andreas Cappelanus taught that the word / “love” comes from the word meaning / “to fish.”

Aviary

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I am a 33 year old drag queen, and I frequently confuse my dreams with reality. Each morning, I awake to a research project: what has actually occurred, and what was a dream? Today I woke up believing I'd lost a pound, so I weighed myself, and I was right.…

The Nutty Professor

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- Do you get out much, Professor? - How so? You mean to lectures? - No, I mean, you know, say, a walk in the park, or, take in a movie, or, maybe take a chick out to dinner, show her a good time, get a few drink

The Gulf

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My 99 year old mother...

The Thief

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I said, kiss this.

Goddesses

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The man she loved did not love her. At first she prayed to Athena for strength and steadiness. She began to knock on wood, spit on her…

Pool Toys

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Confused, I paused and locked eyes with the girl who’d just bounced it with the long, dark hair. “I just saw you with it.” She stared back at me. “Do you see it in my hands now?”

a crushed pepsi can floats down

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These days, even God has a day job.

The Summer Reading Program -- A Librarian Tells All!

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It's July, which, if you work in a public library, means that the Summer Reading Club is in full swing. The SRC used to be just for kids, to motivate them to read when school wasn't in session. But in recent years many libraries have expanded the program to include…

Arcana Magi - c.15: Chisame Murakami, Sentinel of Genbu

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The water burst into droplets of rain and fell on top of her. Chisame laughed out loud, a joy that overwhelmed her as she repeated this feat over and over.

Carapace

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He gathers our abusive fathers, our esophageal tears, our peanut fetuses.

French Vanilla Death - Seconda Parte

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The lead man, who did not seem to be the most important or distinguished, just the one walking in line before all of the others, knocked twice on the door and opened it quickly. He stepped gingerly through the doorway and the others filed gloomily in afte

Swimming

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I held on to the edge

Night at the Reservoir on Airline Drive

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Del and I watched my brother toe his way to the edge of the cottonwood branch that arched over the reservoir.

Rodney & Chelsea

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Chelsea's breasts are more the size of tangerines, but he likes them. He likes that she smells like Fruit Loops and that her front teeth overlap slightly. Her mouth is glossed. He slips his tongue inside.

Bougainvillea

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Marcel Proust ran about the grounds chasing an itinerant tennis ball and kissing the guests, his huge testicles sweeping the lawn.

Read Chinese (from The New Yorker)

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Roy Orbison, Roy Orbison, Roy Orbison, Roy Orbison, Roy Orbison, Roy Orbison—right now that’s all I can say.

Cabana

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Forgetting Superman

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I forget you. Upfront: that’s how this ends.