4098 21 18
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On her lunch break, she dumps Luis for Daniel Towens, the ugliest man in the county.
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409785
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I did not understand its meaning until college when I learned that Frost would take long walks—the inspiration for so many of his poems—and would leave his wife at home while he did. And just before he left, she would guilt-trip him just a little by walk
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40818036
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When he tried to kiss her, she ran to the bathroom to throw up.
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4081198
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Once upon a time, on March 8, 2011, to be exact, there was a flash fiction writer named Rinsewater who had a novel idea – flash fiction writers whose stories were published by indie lit magazines must be paid for their work!
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4079106
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When I was young, my mother told me that J. Edgar Hoover was a homosexual. I don't remember exactly when or why she shared this tidbit with me. This was, after all, fifty years ago. But Mom wasn't a homophobe, so I'm guessing that what intrigued her about Hoover's…
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40776253
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Our flag-draped coffins float to the surface of an uncharted sea and we appear together—patriots both—on the cover of Life Magazine.
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40742121
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"... you shake your head and look down as if I am a mongrel dog who has pissed the Tabriz..."
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407076
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Nobody goes over there cause that’s where the body was found. A little one. Half in and half out the water, waded up like paper.
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40661617
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We descended directly from Charlemagne
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40663222
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So, have your whiskey like a good son.
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406412
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She stroked the piano softly with one hand and I shivered. Maybe it was the keys singing or the way her eyes were closed forcing her to feel her way to right spot or the sex in her voice. Maybe it was just in my head.
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40622515
|
My brother was the catcher, and we were having sex. I was waiting to be scared. In our act, he would swing upside down from the bar, hanging by his knees, his arms extended, and I would fly into his chalky grip.
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40562310
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As the sun rose each morning, so did the lonely old man with it; a sad limping figure strolling across the front lawn with a cigar tucked in his mouth, lighting fresh candles here and there, perhaps on an imagined grave of some loved one long lost to the infirmity of time…
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405243
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What’s it like, sex? I ask her.
You see that picture? she asks, nodding to the large canvas covered with a film of dust propped up against her bedroom wall. That picture’s the only thing she never sold. She hocked it a few times but always got the
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404299
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I guess the ultimate, penultimate failure
would be to write a love poem that
turned on everybody but you.
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404157
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(after Joan Didion) (after Charles Dickens)The car is guttering and at first I do not hear him clearly. The antenna is broken and the wipers are loud. he comes in better when I'm off the freeway. “We must forget about material things.” …
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403811
|
i beat myself back into the littlon fish door, the algae sealing strip connecting as it does. Eons ago, i fell, and andy and i met with hands of crab and lobster in an eleborate room benaeth here, but I know very well, i am not him
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40294037
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It is late in the twentieth century and I'm on my hands and knees for you.
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40215526
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This is what I do for a living: I unpack sentences.
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4015146
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Do not shake the baby. Shake the martini. That’s what martinis are for.
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400721
|
“My fellow Americans,” says his boss, leader of the free world. “The orbit of the moon has been disturbed. No longer revolving around the earth, the moon now hurtles toward the earth. Impact is expected within days.
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40072510
|
Class differences in New York (and if you believe F. Scott Fitzgerald, in America, generally) are best viewed from the beach.
|
400500
|
“Mortal,” it said, and its voice made the cobbler’s soul tremble. “Why do you disturb our peace? It is late, and you should be abed.”
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4001148
|
My father failed in business in the 1950's when Dutch Elm Disease killed the elm trees in our Kansas town. He owned a fabric store on a brick street lined on both sides by elms, the doomed trees that transformed every Midwestern town into a magical kingdom and sidewalks and…
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398393
|
The warrior would prepare for death by writing a death poem. Sometimes the samurai would begin the ritual and write his poem in blood.
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39758543
|
"You," he says, "Sit in here."
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397232
|
Also, our daughter had learned to splash, causing us each time to break into spontaneous renditions of “Splish Splash (I Was Taking a Bath),” which made us not mind so much that we were getting covered in water.
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396532
|
“Where do you want your mustache?” Melanie asked. “You can have it on the side, you know, or, if you prefer, across your labia, in which case it will also look like a cross?”
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39633616
|
We sat under the broken umbrella, its flowered fabric hanging limp on one side. The rain fell softly at the edges of our backs. I kissed his hand, the one without fingers (not a casualty of his job, only of birth). My lips pressed what I couldn't say into his…
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3961195
|
I sprawl, I spill and I splutter
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