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She spilled her neurons across the dissecting board of the violin, breathed deep and forced herself outward with every exhalation. Her molecules mixed with wax and horsehair, and her heart valves arched in unison.

Tobacco

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When you prime tobacco the old way . . .

Berniece

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"I expect 50% of the agreed fee. In cash.” I dropped the envelope at the designated spot and parked up the street.

Red Left Hand

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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.

The Basement of Desire

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sooner or later you realize

Ways in Which Looks Deceive

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Everything is illuminated. If anyone is watching, we look happy.

Trumpet Voluntary

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"There's a concert next month," Sherry said. "Why don't you come to that and I'll introduce you? Then we can go from there."

Winter Blues

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He told me he could feel an army of tears building up behind his eyes.

A Good Wife

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"How did you know he was a nobody if you didn't look at him, eh? Did you raise your eyes and look him in the face? Are you my wife or a whore?"

Honor Grade

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It was a surprise they put me in a dormitory, not a cell,

In My Father’s House There Are Many Murders

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My father said that he had been ready for that journey for many days past and that he had asked often for the spirits to come and take him. He prayed to the god of the heavens and to the earth mother. He prayed for the three of us, and he prayed for the s

Coast to Coast

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No one knows that, while the ex-Area 51 guy delivered his rant, Art Bell left the booth for a Diet Coke.

Why I Don't Write Sex Scenes Anymore

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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."

Turtles Don't Have Hair

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“You’ll have to do better than that,” Skip says. My husband laughs. He has a high girlish chuckle when he’s truly delighted. He can sing really high like a girl, too. “All right,” I say. I leave my headband

The Rainbow Clockwerkz

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Mama Blinkey Lights yells at Papa Blinkey Lights and tells him to quit playing the fool, and when we turn our attention back to removing the shafts, we are chagrined to find that not only have they multiplied once again, but that they have gone yet farthe

my father's fear

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my father has a phobia of dentists./ he also once felt/ that if the house ran out of toilet paper/ he would lose his job.

Blacktop

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Infrastructure...

That Crazy-Ass Willy Wonka Boat

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I was crouched under a bruise-purple sky on a field of battle. I held a World War I-era weapon, an ancient black-iron spear with a spring, and I was told to load balloons onto it without popping them, and then I was to fire the balloons at some unnamed ta

Pirate

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When I got out I didn't buy a new suit of clothes, step into a bar, or bargain for an hour with a whore.

over me

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What you may see initially could be only half the poem. The rest is hidden.

The Common Cold

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There was dad sitting at the table, wide awake, reading glasses on nose, pen in hand above a Doppler graph of numbers on paper, one of many now-lost theorems, looking up as his son walked into the room.

2002 or 3

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She was petite, pear-shaped, white, the girlfriend of a friend who'd done his degree in Russian Literature, but that's not the only reason I liked him. The husband I had for a while traveled whether he needed to or not and so I'd go with Julie and Phillip to movies,…

Blinding Light

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Snow sheeted on the river...

Seattle November

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He ate husks of bone and old paper scraps with yesterday's headlines, blowing down the street like tumbleweeds now at four o'clock in the morning.He wrapped himself in an old army coat against the November winds as he tramped back and forth, back and forth, up the ten…

Things Found In The Wreckage Of Angel 1508

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A canister of unused laughter taken from the mouth of a baby not yet born A splinter of wood from a cross, perfectly preserved in dark tea taken from the belly of a dead Irishman A milky vial of smog taken from the air of Los Angeles circa 1965 A

This isn’t Silverlake anymore

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I hear the slightly scratched voice of Joan Baez coming from the record player singing about the junipers in the pale moonlight, applause erupting like hailstone on a corrugated iron roof. I am singing back through the bedroom wall, wishing the

Saturday Morning

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They kiss, opening their mouths into a smile, sharing a secret. Their kiss is so intimate. I blush, and look away embarrassed and a little aroused.

Abu Arif & His Daughters

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I cannot remember what the celebration was for, but the baby was at its center. We passed him around, a sweet smiling boy about seven months old. The age when babies can sit but can't yet crawl and their thighs get plump.

What the Dark Matter Says

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There can be no convergence./ There is only the talking that talks about/ an angle of sight nothing else can share.

Friendship Pins

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There were a lot of advantages to having shoelaces.