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How to travel with your Demons (5)

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She believes that this started with a phone call when she walked out of the deli yesterday. She believes that it started when it was snowing this morning in Brooklyn, waiting for her car to arrive, but the truth is, this journey began a long time ago.

Lips that Touch Liquor: The French 75

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The French 751 1/2 ounces of cognac1 ounce of lemon juice1 teaspoon of sugar6 ounces of champagne For the rest of that night, everything Mickey looked at appeared to have a halo of music, something nearly visible that he could almost …

Dancers: Summer '69

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The locals cut stone in quarries, built elevators at the Cummins plant in Columbus, or brewed shine back in the hills between Bean Blossom and Gnaw Bone.

There's Love, and there's Marriage

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He didn’t used to smell that way, like a rained-on boot, like the insides of a lived-on couch. ... He used to smell like he wore light, subcutaneous cologne.

COYOTE BAIT

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Light was always fucking with you in LA, especially in the afternoon where it possessed a golden hue that could knock you over if you weren’t careful. Its beauty reminded you of what you lacked.

Miss Winter Solstice

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The palm trees bent upon her passing stride From fishnet stockings running up her hide;

Happiness

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Was I a dreamer? Was I asking for too much?

Defender

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He had what was commonly referred to in junior high as the ‘bullshit mustache’.

Elephant in the City

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No beeping of horns, just complete silence. No panic, just calmness. There’s this one word: serendipity.

The Day the Internet Disappeared

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Myrna woke up with a start and sensed a strange silence in the air. She quickly flipped on an electric switch and when the lights came on she breathed a sigh of relief. Dawn was just breaking so she went back to bed and pulled the comforter over her head.

Harry, Giselle and Joyce

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Harry Reed does not want to die in this room, in front of Giselle, who has been his wife for exactly six months, who has slept beside him for twelve months.

Grandma

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It was a subtle change. Jeffrey's grandmother was never graceful. Her figure was like a garbage bag filled with rounded masses of leaves and the unexpected angle of the odd stick, the entire shambling affair draped in soiled and yellowed hand-knit clothing…

Reverie

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There is a tall and leafy tree in our backyard. Also a bride, a groom, and a chicken.

Soon, and for the Rest of Your Life

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. . . and the last thing you’ll smell will be new-cut pine.

Mr. Natural and a Little Opium On the Side

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It was a sloppy little factory town that could be beautiful, but never bothered trying. Sits on a big lake. More bars than churches, and too many of both. Racist. We hated anybody who didn’t believe in white Jesus

How To Find Yourself (or a reasonable facsimile)

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While I had believed that the subject had been exhausted, that the bottomless pit of the individual navel gazer had been done to death, now here arrives How To Find Yourself to show that previous literature had only scratched the surface of the belly butt

Drought

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burnt-up leaves rustle and fall

Rittenhouse Square: excert from Ari Figue's Cat

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Trunks of plane trees with parchment bark, their shaggy pillars bear a canopy of green like a great tent spread over the square of the park. Cool misting lawn sprinklers, their umbral spay--brick walks glisten in the mottled light. Fading blooms of rhodo

desire

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burning for You, caught in between, yearning to remain completely wrapped around Your finger, feeling panoramic, and this alive.

Oh, Clyde. I must be your Bonnie.

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This is the best kind of crime scene. Spattered like gore from gunshots, I'm left covered in trace evidence.

SEPTEMBER GOLD or DAISY'S SONG

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We left Louisville two weeks after daddy died...

Sorry to have missed you

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1. Allowance 2. Tooth fairy 3. JFK coin savings bank in clear plastic beveled skyscraper tower 4. Ben Franklin iron coin bank

Accidental Faith

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Until millennia have passed and the world is dug up For future historians to ponder And through their meticulous disassembling of dirt They will find my book.

So You Want to Be a Poet

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You’re the girl that would sneak out to poetry readings instead of parties, watching fierce semi-bearded men reading their poems from hand-stapled zines.

Beautiful Plague

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Jacob Obrecht, you are beautiful. Everything inside your head and everything you’ve ever made is beautiful and singing.

Alfalfa

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The year I lick so much windowpane off stamps I have to use Elmer's glue to back the twenty-center for a postcard cash request to my mother, that I am alive note at the end of term, is the year of all the "wine" parties. "Wine" is what we put down

The Intervention

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"You're publishing too much too / quickly. We think that's unhealthy. We want you / to slow down. You're becoming a fame whore."

Louis Belfast

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"You know, there really is a death of the heart."

My Digital Garden

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This part of her digital garden is not impressive, slightly sloppy, even haphazard. However, her avatar is an attractive woman with good make-up.

TGIF

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“You’re off till Monday,” the big man told him. “You can thank Mr. Big Mouth and company for that. Death detail gets two days off.”