1727 19 8
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You would think when a bowl hits a tree the sound would be fierce, a loud clatter as stoneware explodes on birch bark dispersing shards in daffodils and grape muscari, but the noise is gentle, a thudding clink like empty bourbon bottles rattling hollow in…
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172721
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The diner was half filled with the loose ends of humanity that stayed up until five in the morning. We picked a booth by the window. The light in the diner was a dingy yellow, and the seats were that lobster-red vinyl that could only have been installe
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1727128
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The juice that stays on my neck when you tip me back, catching me in an alleyway, holding me upright as the oranges tumble and strike the backs of my knees. You cup your strong-smelling, sticky-soft fingers around my ear and say let's blow this city.
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17261711
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I would be proud to be your house rabbit. I make this case: I will listen flop-eared close to your every concern
and exhultation. If I doze off nudge me. I wake quickly.
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172641
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I'm delighted to report that I've come up with my own school of thought. It's called, "Dress Like a Cat Until You Get What You Want."
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1725117
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He was her summer fling, the first cock to crow when the sun rose over her tequila smile.
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172553
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"I see a child's bicycle swarmed by bees. A stolen oil painting of a helicopter...no, no, that ain't it. Wait. A high school basketball coach will hang himself from a bridge you often think about. This man, now, he's a Navajo Indian.
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172521
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It’s late July, and I’ve just been given the assignment to cover Paganfoil’s ‘Warbird’ tour. To tell you the truth, I really loathe this assignment. I never, ever, EVER cared for hard rock or heavy metal or whatever they’re calling it this dec
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17251211
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The other day I’m in the backyard with one of my kids, doing what he’s calling a training exercise, which is basically the two of us with flashlights, shinning the beams over the grass and up into the night to see what we can see.
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172555
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Ishpeming straddles Lake Superior to Marathon, reaches into the water, pulls out a clump of frozen hotdogs, breaks them apart one by one, rolls them between its fingers, heats them on the thigh of its corduroy pants, and throws them into the sky. Comets t
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17241614
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The psychiatrist was a man who clearly meant to calm his patients, the students. You could tell by his sweater and his neatly combed, plumy hair and the wire-rim glasses he wore. But he was not good at his job. You could tell this by how bad he was at cal
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172496
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He was the kind of man that I would rather have declawed than date, and then leave him on a gurney, helpless and anaesthetized. Cliff Eames had made me feel that way since we were teenagers. He would never be helpless. …
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1724117
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She was the blonde one and the dark-haired one and the one with curly hair and the one with straight hair, the one in the long scarf and even the boy with the camera.
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172410
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I had been crouching in the bushes outside her house for at least two hours when the show started. Some people might call it obsession. Me, I like to call it dedication.
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172461
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At dinner in Marrakech, Namid danced on the table, waving a white napkin, propelled by jetlag and poor judgment.
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1724238
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To be honest, I've always wanted to be black
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1724208
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A supermodel, carrying a large Valentine’s box, fell on the ice.
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17231510
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chet baker shades my eyes
rippling through the cool water
sometimes we feed the fish
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172386
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The one that I love - doesn't love me.
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172376
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His toenails were so long they curled under and into the black leathery pads of his feet. They lightly clacked on our linoleum, tap shoes made of thick petrified roots. He didn't seem to mind.
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172200
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Gerald's law practice wasn't new. He'd worked on the law review and finished near the top of his class thirty years ago. After earning his J.D., he'd gotten a master of law in taxation. His favorite cases required researching legal precedents, and he…
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17222016
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Just bring me his head, that cerebral kiln of hot, ruddy verbiage and cadence.
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172254
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.... The sun tears through the windshield as if it were an six-foot wide magnifying glass and for a moment it feels to them both as if they are in a manipulated universe of fire and ice, storm and heaven, as it does when the skies crack and spread open a
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17222114
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17224314
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Tuesdays she worked afternoons at the bookstore, and he’d secretly go, buy a large order, sit in a corner with a newspaper. Fries covered in vinegar, veins of ketchup.
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1722114
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Everything is illuminated. If anyone is watching, we look happy.
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17211315
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1721119
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I’ve had my face talked off by those types (and I’m sure you’ve met a few) who need to say and hear “special” words, and they go "unh-hunh, unh-hunh, o yeah, o yeah, unh hunh."
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172100
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The road that passed through the swamp near where the cemetery stood, that is, the road that passed by the cemetery that stood near where the swamp lay—but no, that’s not the case, because that’s not the same road. If I’d been on THAT road—
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17211617
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what smells like love may not be love at all
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