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Cherry of Menloves

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Miranda laughed. The cream of the retail industry laughed...

The Guidance Counselor

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He’d see them for fifteen minutes at a time, juniors and seniors, all day long. On their way out of the little town he’d come back to.

The Page Turner

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Her hands are swift and supple as swallows, bouncing off the keyboard in rapid-fire constellations of notes, because she's playing Bach's Concerto no.1 in D Minor, which is busy and prodigal and all over the place. She is Polina Olegovna Osetinskaya, a beautiful Russian…

This is What's Wrong with the World

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Everything's inflatable. Here we go. It's all plastic. Give it a rest, kid.You could say that I just want to enjoy nothing for now. But. Let's go ahead and buy into its precisely sealed with a rubber stamped kiss kind of survival rate statistic for…

With Budgets Tight, Condos Dump Lawyers for Death Squads

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When informed that the hourly rate of Chloe Schultz, the lawyer who handles their collections would increase to $300 an hour, Mort Zucker said “I’m sorry--there’s no woman in Boston worth that kind of money with her clothes on.”

The Maximum Security Book Group

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"So what about this week's selection?" I ask cheerfully. "What did everybody think?" "I liked it!" says Liz. She always does--her tastes aren't very discriminating.

Among the Young Aesthetes

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I found him on the internet the other day, His air laconic, the beard now ashen grey.

The Mutes

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She was deaf, but he was not; they both could sign.

Redux

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Is that who we are as a nation, or was that day an aberration?

Right Now You're Being So Sloshed{revisited}

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amongst the other gentlygathering flotsam up against my internal dictionary's borders. Doesn't matter much if the deed is life rushing itself through a tube that poured us out together like this, or just mutual need that…

The Mid-Life Suburban Strip-Tease Crisis

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Once we’d mellowed from the wine, our little group of friends grew reflective. We started talking about our “bucket lists”–how we were going to spend the remainder of our years before we lapsed into senility.

The Great Pandemic Poem 2020

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First you had to have been there Because the air cleared up When the world stopped driving And the plants bloomed Bigger and brighter than we had ever Ever dreamed The sky was just a brilliant, pure Blue Like when God was born Now fo

Birthday Makeover

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Iris is beside herself with excitement that the most popular girl in her eighth-grade class invited her to join her circle of friends after school. On the sound of the bell, she charges to the door to be the first out of the room and to race to meet Ange

The Pope of Rock 'n Roll

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Pope Leo XIII endorsed a cocaine-based drink and at the age of 90 sat in on “The Last Castrato, Complete Vatican Recordings.”

(lost love, and longing)

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As has happened many times in my life, I heard his voice in my sleep and I saw him, though only briefly. Over the years I have seen this man I thought was him clearly and known when he was in danger – a car wreck at twenty (I was correct on everything b

Night fear illusions

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Sometimes/in the middle of the night/awake under a panoply/as caustic as Doré/illustrating Dante

The Stalker

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I found Marty sitting out on a neighbor’s front porch across the street from his house, which was next door to mine. He was sort of crouched down, early one morning as I headed off to work at the paint factory down in West Berkeley. I wasn’t absolutely su

The Caracol, a snapshot

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waves assaulted black volcanic rock in briny harmony

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

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Marcel Proust had never been to a big-box store before. He was dazzled by the sheer size and scope of the store and the seeming impassivity of the shoppers. So many products, so many shelves, such strangely intriguing examples of the human condition. The people seemed…

Our Notorious Youth

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Our flesh was on fire like a flute with wind, or a little reed next to the dried river. I was like a voyeur whose heart was a sponge, brushing up against all that disturbed man. I was only and ever the flower of our notorious youth, aware of more than the

'Shit-Stained Underwear' by Dick Cheney & the Fucking Losers

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"We run a family show, here — Christ! We play Juice Newton. We play Christopher Cross."

Ode to the Tampon (In the Style of Sharon Olds)

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Today I tweeteda picture ofmyself holding atampon. Yes,you read that correctly. It's strangethat we still talk aboutperiods in hushed tonesisn't it? Halfthe population goes throughit every month but it's notsomething we talk about openly.You know when you…

More Bands Than You Can Shake a Stick At

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Bands: Free Blankie My First Dustbuster Sledge Hammer Glove Compartment Hot Weather Lady Cattle Prod and the Punks The Cowpokes Poker Two Fingers In Occupy This Tidy Up Goal Keeper and The Kneecaps Leslie Sweet And The Kitchen

Alive

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Imagine this: One day you are walking down the street (wearing your protective mask, of course, the cloth one you bought the other day because you liked the color and design) when, by chance, you happen upon a strange sight.

Pig Girl

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"In the camps we ate whatever garbage they gave us." This according to my mother. "We had no choice." But I had eaten pig with gusto at an anti-Semite's table. Somehow this had to be undone. Burial in soil was all I could imagine.

Crossed

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Their raging energy felt like a unified force that could catapult itself in any direction at a second’s notice, like a heat-seeking missile targeting the next warm body.

Picking Strawberries

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Underneath the fence she picked strawberriesThey were nickle sizedand some were red, some were green and some with a littleof both/in between They came up from the ground in little patchesand sweetness could be smelled on the windAs the cloud cover came…

Big Blue

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Standing on the edge of the great shelf

Cleft-Split Rock

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Walking here with you on these narrow strands

Art and Artifacts

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In the morning after a cup of black coffee, she decided she was hungry and opted for the leftover egg roll and dumplings from the previous night. She looks for the chopsticks sticking out with the rest of the utensils and picks up the last of the dumplings and places it…