Most read stories

The Last Birthday Party

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The boy giggled, splashing his father and howling at the cold.

From the Kitchen of my Childhood

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An ice block heart rushed home to the beat of its melt.

Smiles are for Suckers

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I walked her home. She lived eight blocks in the opposite direction of me, but it made her smile —I made her smile.

Eden, Suburbs

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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.

Sounds of Silence

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Mirko returns! All the words have been said.

Animals in Reverse

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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.

Margaret’s Mermaid

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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…

FENG THE CHEF REALIZES CHINA’S NOT BUYING SALMON FROM NORWAY

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China refuses them politely, politely in that Communist way of saying without saying.

Starfight (working title)

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In the sky, like it was a big movie screen, two ... well, she didn't even know what they were, but it was clear they were fighting. The one on the left, which looked something like a man, was dressed in some kind of loose blue and red tunic with baggy pan

3 Haikus for Dutch Kickboxer Gilbert Yvel

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silent black badass unstoppable foot of God now the sweetest sleep

Pretty Face

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The two girls who were my best friends had not minded that I didn't draw it in. It was Obie, as we called him for short, who commanded me to inhale at thirteen. "You're dead," Obie said, as soon as I did it. I fell backward in the tall, yellow grass.

Evil Humors

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I blame it all on evil humors. Something's leaking.

One Dead in Violent Crash

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Death came to my street, but I did not invite him.

i can't have

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Hey there little hippie girl, smilin’ to the ears and dripping with scarves, I cherish our friendship. However, every time you take off your shoes to dance at a rock show, hair swingin’ like silk vines in the paradise that is your shaking ass...

The Other Side

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Heels.

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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.

No One Is Listening

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Bum on a Parisian stoop begging with his big Jackson Pollack bare head in the rain The water running in streaks all over his brain reminding him of a painting he once thought of Man standing outside a bar talking to his own reflection

Wedded Bliss

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Alaina paced around in the green room. She couldn't believe she had agreed to do this. Her friends had told her it would be an excellent idea. How can agreeing to marry a total stranger on national television a decent idea, let alone an excellent one? "Oh Lain, it'll be…

Let Us Pretend

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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

The '08 Campaign And the Crash

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Here's the '08 presidential campaign in a nutshell: The Dems couldn't dredge up a white guy that even the dead in Chicago would vote for, so they went with Obama. Meanwhile, the GOP couldn't dig Reagan up try as they might,…

Poppies

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I was born upside down, the umbilical cord looped twice around my neck. My mother claimed she was so busy working the swing shift at the hospital that she didn’t even know she was pregnant at first. But I found this hard to believe. Of course she knew. My

When Your Poem Becomes Self Aware

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Where will you hide? Because you know it Will seek you out for answers you might Only be asking for yourself. It Will send many students to stand outside Your apartment and chant your name. It will beg you to perform its birth Again to the…

Banana Republic

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I would love to believe that this poem might sell a poetry book

Whatever Happens

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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…

The Mouths of Babes

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Moans and whispers woke me. I rubbed crust from my eyes and glanced at the G.I. Joe clock on my nightstand. 9:36. I pulled the covers back and stumbled out of my room. The living room light was on. Father Osborne's black suit coat was draped over the back of the couch. He…

When Alone

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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…

Flirtbooking

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76 nutswinging likes

Vigil

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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…

Foo Fighters

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Without a charge on the skin of the plane, we were struck by the bronze colored orb. Contact was brief, and it seemed as if the orb passed right through the aircraft. Despite the shielding of the equipment, most of it failed. We managed to land by "dead s

The Goodbye Meets the Hello at the Station

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"You come to nature with all your theories, and she knocks them out flat."--Renoir "Dreaming is free."--Blondie "I can't vouch for my ability to avoid dullness..the odd position in which poets find themselves explains their often-sentimental identification with the…