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Close those lips

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Ma tells me not to put a tampon between my legs. For fear of cotton fornication.

Tomorrows Never Written and Subsequent Unrehearsed Memory

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For some, a vertical pattern will evoke prison bars, for others, product bar codes.

Wet funeral

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I know now, how she moves without verbs after you crushed her into the river.

Lens

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Night fell and the photographer slept, one hand between Prue's legs.

Bring Me His Head

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Just bring me his head, that cerebral kiln of hot, ruddy verbiage and cadence.

To Live It Again

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She began guiding Penny’s arms, whispering movements through her body. Memory and experience sang through every fiber of their being. The song had become her life.

April

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...he thought often of the rollicking waves, of being pulled under, of being weightless and senseless...

Flying Tiger

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I screwed my courage to the sticking point and asked him if he had shot down any Japanese airplanes. He grinned at me. “One,” he said.

Years After

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Years After she can go home.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

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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.

(From an Awakened Sleep)

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pluck me from the charred grate

Catalog of Disappeared Things

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He runs a mail-order business from a storefront and distributes a catalog of disappeared things.

Arcana Magi Memorial - c.4

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Azure walked through the fog as though she were walking to class. Her hands swayed through the mist and felt the thickness of the cloud through her fingers

Mona

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Doc and I talked for several hours. When I told him Mona was pregnant, he turned his head and looked at me. “Who's the father?” he asked. Don't know, I said. Mona didn't know, either.

Siblings

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It seems the people of this house were a happy family – The smiling faces, the children’s enthusiasm tells me as much. I wonder what happened to them.

1993, What I Wanted

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Two-way conversation with God.

Optical Delusion

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Veiled by tenuous clouds and dirty air,

Good For The Ducks

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It's dawn. It's quiet on the pond in the Public Garden. The light is calm, the pollution is mild, and everything is still,except for the occasional cruising taxi. It's the beginning of spring-- tulips out, leaves…

the last thing

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salmon maple syrup horseradish smoke detector the list read, scrawled in purple marker on the refrigerator door.

The Way Back Home

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500 miles all the way from Omaha nine hours on the back of a flatbed truck

It Takes Three Heartbeats For Me To Fall In Love

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...and 55 words to tell you about it.

Joe for Town Council

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“I heard your dad took out the Dairy Queen drive-thru,” said Pat.

4:45pm, Philadelphia

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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…

Wounded Knee

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“They picked me up in their spaceship about noon,” Austin Grantham says to me while pulling up an apple crate to use as a stool.

Arcana Magi - c.24: Desperation

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Oryn woke up in her desk. Sweat trickled from her forehead. Staring at her notepad, with her latest calculation, she forgot to go home. Her thoughts of Alysia calmed for now, but still lingered from her dreams.

Common Sense

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'Yer a cool, cool glass of water baby....'

Mr. Smashface eats fast food at Supermarket # 9

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“Now God,” Mr. Smashface calls me out by name.

Disorienteering

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At night, on these New England roads, there is no light, no pink sodium-vapor glow, no guideposts.

The Clock Man's Trouble

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A lowing cow cracked open the darkened room like the yawn of a gravid alien.

Tattooed Hands

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A 1960’s of walking sugar beet fields to remove the rogue bolters by hand and on other days painting the ironwork of cattle sheds with red oxide. Then a 1970’s when the self-inking explosion of tattoos on his hands and then his body began.