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Fiction with Teratoma Preserves

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In Nebraska, we found a dead man lying between the furrows of a field. He’d been there awhile in the heat and the sun, the only shade provided by a cloud of flies. The dead man lay on the ground, decaying, disappearing into the dirt:

Some Kind of Compass

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if we stare into the dark long enough, we see ourselves at some end or beginning –

The Heart Does Not Know What It Cannot Have

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“I take him to see all those sexy movies,” she said, “because it puts the passion back in him. I love what he does to me when we get back home after those movies.”

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.

Decrucifixion

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"Isn't it time to remove the nails, and put Jesus to rest once and for all," Mary asks.

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.

"You Go"

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You like your life. Ducks march in a row. You've reached a certain age but you're strong. Healthy. You've got food, clothing, shelter. You have insurance and important papers. You don't have a man in your life, and you admit— Admit nothing. The…

Naked (a translation)

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His body echoed in the mirror/ cracked into distant images

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…

Self Portrait as a Drowned Man

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The light, oblique and waning, filters through butcher’s paper to reveal a body suspended in death but never decomposing.

Haze

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I slide my hand under the sheets. It’s cool there. An impression. This is where she would be.

Always Vera

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“The price of everything's gone up,” I say. “But I don't have to buy you chocolate if it's costing too much.” She says nothing and bends her head again, gnarled hands slowly breaking a family-sized chocolate block into pieces.

Old men, old dogs

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old men with crispy sunburnt ears

Nothing in the World (an excerpt)

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All night the moon had watched him, and he’d been unable to return its stare. Finally there was sunlight, and Joško took up his rifle and rucksack. He had trouble keeping his balance at first, but gradually his legs steadied.

To My First Crush

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But I came back around, after Robert Kennedy got shot, with one hand up your skirt and the other on the gear shift...

to day

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I turn my head. Time starts running.

Fifty-One

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Several friends—hers and his—hung around the edges of their marriage, and it would be naive to rule out the possibility of a few stray affairs. The thought didn’t anger him; on the contrary it amused him as if it were some trivia question, the answe

Albert Walks

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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 …

Demolition Derby

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ornery women / in tall hats, suspender dads, kids deformed with / ribbons

Broken Bulbs - Chapter One

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And here I am again. I chew my nails. I tap my foot. I chew my nails. I sweat. I bleed. My nose bleeds. It drips. I drip. I'm dripping through my chair.

The Bottle

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That bottle just sits there in the closet, next to the hats and a box full of old gloves. Years it’s been there. Try as we might, we never open it. We just don’t have a damn thing to celebrate. Who was it brought that bottle into our lives and went and ruined …

Autumn Offering

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You may gather from me the spring of my youth

Frozen Chicken

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One of the pieces, I noticed, had the real shape of a miniature chicken, its mohawk, pin legs, and small definition of wing. “Look at that,” I said to my friend. And just then, the wing twitched.

The Sugar-Free Scent of Today

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Should have washed our hands, we thought after, licking sugar-spit and dirt.

Release

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One of the runners was collecting bags of dead animals to bring back to the van. Nicholas looked inside one of the bags, but all he saw was a stringy mess of fur and tissue. The runner grabbed the bag from Nicholas. He shrugged and said "hammers.

Blue Jeans and Black Leather

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I lock the last of the beer and wine doors and head back to the cash register. Our clocks are not on bar time so I only have a few minutes. I check the till. A stack of ones and three fives. Enough to break a twenty, but looking bare. The parking lot's empty. The air…

Doreen - III

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Male genitals were usually portrayed diminutively in classical art. After forty minutes in a drafty room without cloths on, I was beginning to understand why.

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.

The Color of Sound

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The girl put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in cupped hands and this was for comfort but she appeared symmetrical the way an etheric visitor might and the brightness was just then trying to find a way through an opening in morning dining room…

Arcana Magi Memorial Vol.2 - c.5

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Before Ciel could ask further, Sora pulled her arm. Ciel turned to the golem summoner and saw the look on her eyes, a silent warning not to push Azure.