2091 12 8
|
his perfect ivory
voice telling me
i brush too hard.
…as if he cared
|
2091 26 18
|
sooner or later you realize
|
2091 2 2
|
There are worse things than getting your ass kicked by a 12 year old Puerto Rican kid. This was exactly my thinking as he stood over me, his pre-pubescent screams sounding like a baby Bruce Lee, preparing to finish me off.
|
2090 3 2
|
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2090 0 0
|
Alysia slowed down for a moment. She clutched her head again. She looked up and found herself at a playground. There was a familiarity in the air.
|
2090 10 10
|
Bob’s thoughts drift back to bird, the solitary creature in the field, dignified, unhurried, waiting. Bob wonders where he goes; surely he will move on when spring gives way to summer.
|
2090 8 6
|
Len and I sit on Harpo's porch, drink beer and gab. It's hot, even for July. Len and I joke and laugh, and Harpo stares off into the middle distance.
|
2089 13 13
|
Go ahead, boy, pout like a fool.
|
2089 2 0
|
A black wind raced ahead of the Merbreth and Juko could smell the thing's fur, matted with the blood of men. The coppery scent mingled with the fear coming off the men around him, a fear so palpable it became a tangible thing, something to be tripped over
|
2088 2 2
|
That's when we struggle, got it? Right there on the floor. It's not the brawl of the century, and I'm not the pilot who delivers the Enola Gay.
|
2088 10 9
|
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
|
2088 0 1
|
#1 MISCELLANEOUS NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
What kind of person would the author’s daughter, Gracie, become? That things didn’t look bright for her future was an understatement: Mother: alcoholic, dead at age 25 from puking her brains out; Father: m
|
2088 14 8
|
once she went to quenchthen she went to scrubnow she collects dead toadsgrinds them with cornmeal to feed her sowsonce she ploughed the land toiled with her face deep in dark soil her back burning in hot sunnow she works in the paper millmaking laminated labels for the…
|
2087 9 8
|
Turns out it was you. But. You made it into the latest dumping ground in spite of their voted insults. In spite of being told you weren't even going to be around to be danced with. The loneliest girl now looks perfectly trim and trendy to all eyes.…
|
2087 27 13
|
This is not a story you expect to end at Cape Horn.
|
2087 8 3
|
Morning claims me from sleep before I can say noYou wake up instantly from your alarm clock's ringYou are bright, enthusiastic, ready to cooperateIt will be a good dayYou shower, dress and I prepare your breakfastEggs, soft, toast two ways, one with salmon cream cheese,One…
|
2087 6 3
|
Danny said that you like him now. He smiled like it was the best news that he could give me, but his eyes dared me. …
|
2087 1 0
|
Forever
Implies
To my recycled soul
That it is achievable
If only I stretch myself
Towards it
|
2087 17 8
|
I kiss his sunburned nose, so nice under the beach house. We hear the shower of palm leaves like wings getting ready. We talk about a time we'll no longer know each other, when he'll be sad in a bar in another state, slipping and sliding and petting lost dogs in the parking…
|
2087 8 5
|
I could love them all, your people, /
Learn their differences, speak their tongues, /
When there is no one there to hold you /
But me, my arms would be wide enough /
To hold armies of your need. Do not forget.
|
2086 0 0
|
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
|
2086 2 2
|
“You wouldn't believe it.” Peter leaned in to whisper. “Don’t let the Kodak moment with the wife and kids fool you. That guy is totally gay.”
|
2086 9 2
|
“Dad’s a dick,” my sister said. I nodded. He threw $20 on the candy counter for one small bag of popcorn and told the girl to keep the change.
|
2086 1 1
|
They sit, they create, they watch.
|
2086 3 3
|
The white Styrofoam box sits on the prep station. It was delivered a few hours earlier. Half awake, I don a black apron and grab a large cutting board. To keep it from slipping, I put the cutting board on a damp towel laid…
|
2085 10 4
|
Ma tells me not to put a tampon between my legs. For fear of cotton fornication.
|
2085 6 4
|
“I better go. My mom needs me at home,” she says. Soft. Smooth. Firm. Sweet. Maybe I’m pushing too hard. I kiss her on the cheek and she stiffens in response. My heart bleats.
|
2085 4 0
|
Remember me? I am the large, dented acorn you threw at your brother, Ken, during the huge acorn war of 1969. You were thirteen. He was eleven. And the entire neighborhood was in your backyard that day. Steve, Jack, Jerry, Tom, Dan, Jeff, Drew. A bunch of the kids…
|
2085 10 8
|
a mid-life crisis in 55 words
|
2084 9 8
|
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.
|