2089 6 6
|
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.
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208900
|
The palm trees bent upon her passing stride
From fishnet stockings running up her hide;
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208900
|
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
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2088910
|
I get out of the pitstop at the reststop, wade through parking lot hiphop. Hummers with Jesus Luvs George W bumper stickers, and a subdued slow hurricane of dour obese women in powder blue and tepid brown walking about the place like zombies. And I see t
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208840
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He had what was commonly referred to in junior high as the ‘bullshit mustache’.
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20881812
|
Go to your room. Children are meant to be seen not heard.
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208771
|
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
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208600
|
Azure leaned on the wall outside the gymnasium. She pulled back the sleeve of her blouse and saw the shackle glow. Azure realized that her feet dragged across the ground, leaving behind straight-line grooves on the grass beside the sidewalk.
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20862824
|
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.
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208693
|
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
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2086175
|
I turn my head. Time starts running.
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208533
|
He pushed aside the netting and trained the flashlight on the dripping courtyard. Rivers ran off the wide pinanona leaves, surged through fissures in the crumbling wall.
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2085119
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Traveling with a live chicken on a city bus is an experience I hope never to repeat.
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208400
|
The Zoomba quivered in anticipation as the front door shut.
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208444
|
"a.k.a. I-D-I-O-T" (The Hives).
|
208451
|
"From up here the city lights burn like a thousand miles of fire," he croaked, his voice scratchy from sobbing. In pinpoints of illumination he imagined his wife - *former* wife - Calli in that Mustang convertible he'd gotten her for a birthday surprise
|
208441
|
His body echoed in the mirror/
cracked into distant images
|
208356
|
The lizard is like wearing wings on my back, makes me fly like a dragon in my dreams, which I have all day long, while looking at you, talking to you, right now, having dreams in some part of my head. I'd like to stick out my tongue and lick the part of m
|
2081119
|
|
208185
|
Albert Walks When Albert walks he is astonished. Ripe fruit falls to the ground at his feet, offering itself. The earth's tremor rumbles, celebratory, through his mended shoes and up his shins. The birds darting through the sky above …
|
20811110
|
1. Allowance
2. Tooth fairy
3. JFK coin savings bank in clear plastic beveled skyscraper tower
4. Ben Franklin iron coin bank
|
208100
|
Ai picked up the ball and noticed the feathers. Wings unfurled and the head looked up. Staring deep into the bird’s eyes, Ai could have sworn she saw flames.
|
208100
|
Her letter ends with her best words: No one will ever love you like I do. Beneath, she draws a heart, sad eyes, two jewel tears. Yours forever, Dawn. Hole by hole, not to wake her sister, she pulls the paper free, creases, folds again, then cuts…
|
208152
|
When she awoke in her yard, she poured what was left of the rum into the dead grass. The man beside her lay with fingers curled, a claw she’d found wedged up her skirt when she woke. Tom, she said, his name nonsense, tongues. Might as well have been any
|
2081196
|
He was entirely guilty of what he had done and wanted that to be acknowledged and understood by the arresting officer.
|
2080118
|
Our next door neighbor is in love with his cat. His wife sits in our kitchen crying her eyes out.
|
208051
|
I’ve never liked birds. There’s something smug about the way they look at us, we prisoners of gravity, something self-congratulatory in their songs. Maybe I’m just projecting my own feelings about being stuck on the ground, attributing attitudes t
|
20791917
|
Jake remembers that Amy told him once that she thought that somehow he would always be a part of her life. That was before she went to Spain and married an American bull fighter.
|
207972
|
You look just like your mom
she says
I LOL her and say, funny
cuz you look just like yours
|
207997
|
when unicorns took to flight / the poles shifted / the world flooded / and Pangaea busted open like calloused palm
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