2174 4 3
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"Perhaps a divorce?" she continues, thinking of his thin, long hands and how they almost, not quite, but almost, made their usual pattern on her body, remembering having queried many men on what their most erotic sexual encounter was and found that the an
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217454
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When she was eleven, Margaret still believed in mermaids. She would fasten the neon diving rings that her mother gave her to her ankles and swim around in the pool for hours. By the end of the afternoon, with chlorine-swollen skin she would wince as she…
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217431
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It was the end of a New York City summer, the heat and humidity thick all around. But in her body it was an unforgiving winter, the memory of pain always leaving her cold
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217400
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Staring at her horribly disfigured face, I envied her.
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21745619
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An ice block heart
rushed home to the beat of its melt.
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21732617
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My wife tells me I should marry Pam. “She would be good for you,” she says.
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217385
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I read the last line and close the book with a smack. “That ends that section,” I tell him. “Coming up is the chapter titled ‘The Ancient History of the Sewers of Paris.'
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217264
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21724022
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You have arrived at the river, numb with the murmur of the city and the sleeplessness of anger, boredom, and too many people loving too many people too much. The heat in this night, not the moon as in ancient poems, is blazing; the moon is pink like the…
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21712116
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Mark Strandover decadesa steady diet of dictionenlarged his heartone day it just burstRobert Frosta crazy ideathat he couldbuild a wallwithout mortar tookpossession of his mindhe piled stoneon stone higherand higher untilthey toppled overcrushing him beneath Wilfred…
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217160
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The boy peered at the rather unusual place between the girl’s legs, which was entirely more complicated than a person might be given to believe should he see it, for example, bundled in underpants or a bathing suit.
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217140
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Why am I attracted to this girl?
She’s beautiful. Only five foot four, but still looks skyscraper tall thanks to those skinny greyhound legs of hers. She told me she used to dance, then giggled and said she hadn’t since she was five years old.
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2171189
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She'd sit out on the back deck and dig into the skin around her toenails with a paring knife until it bled. He'd listen to a single aria of Opera's Greatest Hits, number 10, until the cusp of some feeling, either despair or rage, would build and fade. Then he'd start…
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21712716
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"A prostitute of the Hotel Khadijah in Rahab fell in love with my father...."
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217000
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Why, I tell you, one run through that song, I’m always about to find my way out. But if this happens just two more times now, I tell you, I am going to go out and start something. You can’t treat a man like this. Even if he is smaller, like me. Why, I
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217052
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There was that time he decided to avoid the whole situation by getting off the bus early.
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2170149
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She doesn't even know who wears the Adam's apple in this house.
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21702317
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Death came to my street, but I did not invite him.
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216943
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I’ve paid my dues in this dimension/
so show me where the rest of them are
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21693318
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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.
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21691911
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Her bulldozer of a husband died five years ago.
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2168269
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So they told him he better get ready to join the army because that’s where it was at, for him. After all, not everybody could split coconuts with their hands.
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2165910
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When Matthew calls I'm sautéing garlic for the polenta and Joe is squeezing buttercream rosettes from a Ziploc bag onto a spice cake he made from scratch. Or trying to—we…
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2165106
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Grief is to have given freely too unfreely. Grief is to have given one year too many. Wicked is to have wanted it to be given away that way. Wicked is to Sam as duty is to Mother. Sam’s wife is to his friend’s wife as one Mercedes to another.
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21651515
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for Bill YarrowPoetry is a way of breathingagainst the enemy's chest withoutlosing consciousness again. Itis a ghost dance. Poetry is tobe determined by the plight of bees.Poetry is a waterfall ona mailing list. I've never tasteda finer whiskey than poetry.Poetry is half…
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21652413
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She was still alive when I started to write the story of her life, called Lucy's Story, about her recovery from catnip, but it was not the real story. In the fake story, she took the subway to A.A.
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21643116
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Everyone is botching everything, even the rescue team. They can't get to me. I am surrounded by people who don't know a fatal wound when they see one. I am so determined to live that I become bossy.
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216498
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bullet points about her soul
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216311
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The orange sky melts away.
Shadows fall and twist in the wind. I’m on patrol with three of my buds, there to retrieve the body of a fallen comrade, Bill’s body, we’re told. They got him, used him, then dumped his body in a ditch and said, “He
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216311
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