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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,…

Glass Handcuffs

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Maybe it's a suicide clock, counting the drops of blood on the bathroom tile. A cancer clock counting the number of good cells still willing to fight. Maybe it's a justice clock, counting the remaining days of freedom you have left.

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…

Strobe Genre, Utah!

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Co-polar order spectrum; strobe genre (the disco light of the 70s illumining and eclipsing fiction-non-fiction-non in one "article"); UTAH! a jump from forehead-down to standing fast, a cheer, for genre studies.

The Thing on the Stair

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Autumn brings It

XAM: Paragraph Series

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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.

One Cent Baby

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Yesterday, I ripped off Dollar General. Today my baby died. Tomorrow I will file a lawsuit. After all, someone has to pay.

Ants

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I don't know what happened to all the men. Used to wonder if they killed them all.

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.

The Other Side

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One Dead in Violent Crash

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

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…

Just One Sentence

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Blinking, Eleanor frowned at the words she’d uttered. They were absurd… foolish. Unequivocally unscientific, but beautiful nonetheless. The notion of the sunless hours embodied as a clumsy artist struck the student as interesting.

Breathing

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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

Walking In My Big Black Boots

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"People do that. They cross the road when they aren’t supposed to and get away with it. They do it all the time. Only, then, he might think I was a rebel and I’d rather he imagine me a square. A square who never was a wild thing. A rebel who chose to be t

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…

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…

Like Jeremy Irons

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Usually, you shop around carefully before condescending to see a new doctor, but this time you go to the first gynecologist who would have you, who has time available. Usually, you refuse to see a male doctor (you hate having male doctors!) but this time,

What I find

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is every word is a small step takenaway from you that arcs back to me likea mamba's mouth. I'm not going aroundin place so much as running in circles. You can see my devilry here. You arethe truth here and that makes me the lie. You'renew morning. I'm much, much more…

The Wonders of Wonder

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There it was, square in the middle of someone’s lawn: a slice of white bread, like a shirtless Englishman stretched out in the sun.

Metal Heads: A Novel

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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

Shrine

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My tongue is clicking. I want to act out. I want an unprofessional bargain.

Sounds of Silence

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Mirko returns! All the words have been said.

The most tender thing

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Somehow, I have your body, but you’ve gone missing.

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

Eyes that Said Don't Leave Me Here

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Two friends follow the train tracks by their neighborhood.

In Her Wake

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A piece of her skull landed here. But it fell off. Then I couldn't find it.

Papa

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Fridays always said it was time for golf,which left me wide, wide like the space between your teeth,on the stoop til you'd let me share your palm with your nine iron.I was a utility. Your gap toothed divot tool or a headcover that had your smile.Sometimes you'd gawk back,…

Death Pays a Visit But Fucks Up

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We get prepped for the big finale, and we don't want the guy who turns up with the scythe to be Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy.

fork

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