2144 1 1
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. . . hands before your face, heart without blood . . .
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2144206
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The book has known many women’s hands, something erotic and frequently checked out from our local library. Its cover depicts a man and a woman, both with improbable if not impossible bodies. I believe the term is bodice-ripper.
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214421
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When I glance at the bedside clock I realize that we have been making love in one way or another for nearly three hours now. I am filled with a certain secret smugness that I am still going strong. It has been a long time since I’ve done anything quite li
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2143255
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" Not a day goes by/ that isn't stabbed with common sorrow"--Maurice Manning Crazy's alright by me if it's a harmless plea for some little sanity, or unavoidable by birth but it just won't do for tricks. Like say I go over there right…
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214361
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To my right, blank stares interchange with closed eyelids on an unkempt face. The minutes drip into the endless sea of night outside the window, each time creating a deeper blackness.
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21431615
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• Don’t confuse the virtues of bananas with the virtues of banana bread
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21431210
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The coffins pile up gnawing dust on the glass panes to the rims of my binoculars. Shadowy cracks of stifling proportions, gliding over my eyes a requiem of mahogany. At dawn they heave between the workers’ hands, leave their resting places for a green tra
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21431313
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Talking about a Friend Over a Cup or Two of Coffee “Their first fight was over school lunches. Free school lunches. She taught Kindergarten in a public special ed center for emotionally disturbed children. The…
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21431613
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no one likes a bitchy cowboyhike up yer britchespull yer brim down'nshut up and ridestop making petsout of peevesand idolsout of gossipinsteadmake a hobbyout of yer horseand fer godsakesseason that saddle
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21431313
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He stays a couple of yards behind me as we slog uphill. I try to diffuse the tension with a coy toss of head, slip on wet leaves. My ankle rolls and I splat noisily down. From my new angle his beard looks less stylish—bristles straggle all up his neck. He maintains…
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21421915
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as long as you have some snacks up there
I can be brave
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214200
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Alysia stopped for a moment. She knew what she was going to say, but held back her words and thoughts. Chisame took advantage of her hesitance.
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214220
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I made my way quietly out back and sat in Helga’s whitewashed porch swing, listening to the first faint sounds of big band music drift out of Helga’s open windows and into the cooling summer air. The darkness was moving in slow from the east, interrup
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214210
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I am wearing stolen socks. Not because I haven't any of my own, and not because they are an exact fit. Only because they soothe my emptiness inside.
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2142128
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Two-way conversation with God.
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214282
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Later that night, he lay his shivering children in his own bed, the bed that betrayed and abandoned him just a few years ago. It will protect them now.
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214165
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We didn't wear shoes in the summer, except for Sunday school and church. The soles of our feet were black and tough as shoe leather.
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21411617
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what smells like love may not be love at all
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214192
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“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.
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214101
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“I heard your dad took out the Dairy Queen drive-thru,” said Pat.
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214122
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Why is the ghost of John Lennon haunting a house in rural Oregon?
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214143
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...I grew up in a provincial town which at the time had no bookstore and no library — no library even at school...
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214122
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Most nights while in his sleep, with his one good eye deeply shut, the old man can hear the whispers of the specter in the remote wanderings, holding the surrounding woodlands in its snare. The sound of it closing in, with the bones of the universe crushing in…
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21412011
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...he thought often of the rollicking waves, of being pulled under, of being weightless and senseless...
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214033
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salmon
maple syrup
horseradish
smoke detector
the list read, scrawled in purple marker on the refrigerator door.
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21402018
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2140116
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Down South now means August cold snap,
the forties roaring my wool cap
off my head.
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2140108
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"good luck, and be assured acceptance for representation or publication is based on different criteria at different agencies and we are sure you will yet find someone mentally deficient enough to give your book a shot."
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2140123
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....sees the beginning of a new day through the closed shutters, hears the guard washing up at the sink, feels the beginning of a cry in his throat.
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21391611
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He runs a mail-order business from a storefront and distributes a catalog of disappeared things.
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