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The Majesties

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When the scrapbook came out this time, I noticed a photo I hadn't seen before, the Baroness with her arm around the waist of Princess Diana. A lavish display of blooms towered behind them. "Did you know her?" the florist asked.

We're All Guys Here

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The doorbell rang while Ron was masturbating.He closed his eyes tight. Tried to hold the image of Lori bent over the arm of the couch. No use. It was gone. Ron sighed, then levered the recliner down. Tied on the terry-cloth robe Lori had given him. He kicked aside an empty…

King of the Mountain

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Daniel told himself to push. -- push harder than he'd ever pushed himself before. He reminded himself of what his father once told him: don't give in to pain. Be a real man. You can take it.

Noche de las Ranas

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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.

Eating Grief at Bickford’s

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Eating Grief at Bickford's · From Allen Ginsberg's “Kaddish” There are no places anymore Where I can sit at a threadbare table Pick at the crumbs on my plate And wipe The white dust From my pitch …

The Sitzer

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Fred, who by that point had already wanted to call Jimmy "Jim," talked a river. Jimmy, who had already called her Freddy, took a mojo bag from his back pants pocket and asked her to write something that he could put inside.

Kitty Love

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Our next door neighbor is in love with his cat. His wife sits in our kitchen crying her eyes out.

The City of Lights

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We argue on the way down. We bicker on the walk to the bistro. I get coffee and croissants at the bar and bring them back to our table, and she is still talking, proving me wrong, when I return.

In the hot seat

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I sighed and looked deep into his eyes. “There is nothing more powerful than denial.”

Erase Her

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I wake up in the morning and write her name on the white paper napkin I always place in front of me at the kitchen table as I have my first cup of coffee. I write it throughout the day. Twelve or fifteen times. I've done this for exactly twenty-three days. I always…

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.

Whatever Happened to Sue Ellen?

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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

Threesome

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Six kinds of crazy, he said. That told me everything. It told me enough.

Thirteen Ways of Nevermore: Arkansas, 12/31/2010

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MIDNIGHT all day. Bleak December. A chiaroscuro, snowing blackbirds. (Pas de cinq mille, in B minor.)

What Ever Happened to Old Tom Joad

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Someone hollers Okie.

Joan of Dark

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What happens in heaven stays in heaven.

Armless Wonder

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For the woman with no arms, life is a constant dexterity demonstration

Danger Above, Danger Below

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And you know that notion just goes to show...

Angels Carry the Sun excerpt: Chapter One, In the Woods

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Chapter One In the Woods Everett Finn liked white-bread sandwiches. In June, Flora forfeited all her free cafeteria lunches to sit with him during his quiet lunch breaks in the classroom. "Eleven more days until graduation," she told him. He sat…

Where You Lay Your Dreams

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In all my marriage stories, I am both victim and hero.

Suspended Heart

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The suspended heart became an oracle of sorts. Hung from a string, immersed in the kind of glass container in which tulips grow, it was located between Bath and Body Works and Kleinfelter's Jewelers at the north entrance of the mall. Someone had lost it,

Snapshots

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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.

The Sugar-Free Scent of Today

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

We are the rising

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I’m sick of you headless muffuckas searching for a facelift.

Royal Coachman

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" trout hovered in a sun-dappled pool"

Lunch at Lefty's

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Sixteen years married, and now she wants a wedding ring. He brings her a box of Cracker Jack. She doesn’t think it is funny.

Joseph Campbell by the Aloe Vera Plants

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There was man from antiquity that sat next to me. His belief in the healing qualities of Aloe Vera so pronounced, that the house brimmed with such. He had no use for modernity in any of its forms but was fond of supermarkets. When in one he was overwhelmed with an…

French Fries

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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.

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.”

Fake Letter: From Your Gay Son

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Dear Mom, You told me the connection between a mother and her son is like no other connection. You carried me for nine months. You scheduled visits with the doctor; you thought and discussed and re-thought and re-discussed with dad what my name would be; you…