Most read stories

Statistics (or: Walking to Work through Lexington Market)

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I avert my gaze to the crab grass pushing through broken concrete, the spent condoms, the empty vodka nips rolling at her stockinged feet...

Blinding Light

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Snow sheeted on the river...

Disorienteering

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

In the Waiting Room

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She sits and waitsOn a chair that is hardWith a neck that hurtsAnd an eyeball that stings.She sitsSo stiffOn a chair that is hardWith a neck that hurtsAnd an eyeball that stings.She sitsAnd the hand on her lapHas a joint that cracksWith a neck that hurtsAnd an eyeball that…

A life in books

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Forget Ulysses, life itself is a stream of consciousness if you ever have time to get out of the stream and take a look at it. And there’s nothing that gets you out of the stream like a short sharp shock.

HOUSE OF GHOSTS

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The blue Victorian at 1145 White Street shifts in its foundation, creaks, and settles in for the night. The girls are bundled into their beds. My wife, too, has gone to sleep. I’m alone in the kitchen, steeping chamomile tea, coughing phlegm into the wr

Found Poem

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The waters rose / on the earth

two dudes talking

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“What about this shirt?” “I didn't know Gap had an ‘approaching middle age pimp' department.” “So… no?” “Yeah. No.” “Approaching middle age?” “So…” “So?” “Soooooo…”…

"Fancy Me"

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He stopped the shower and recounted his life, now Kin-less and plain.

You Were This Close

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I don't know if we'll meet again in the sea of light. Circumstances aren't only up to human beings. After all maybe it's all drunk circumstance, but that doesn't answer the blinding question, it only poses some more. This is…

Improbable Bodies

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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.

CONFUSION

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She asks if I would like to join them.

Fallen Women 1010

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Like all professors, I'm required to maintain office hours to help my students so I'm at my desk every fourth Tuesday of months without an "r" in them from 10:30 to 11:00 p.m.

Moon Over L.A.

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The moon begins to rise over L.A. while the roaches try to crawl up the sides of the mountains surrounding the L.A. Basin. While fires rage in the forests of the night, here comes the moon over the horizon, big and haunted, pock-marked and coo

Across the street.

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When the talking's done, they get in their cars to go wherever they go, and just as soon as that last car clears the path, the yellow-cabbed trucks are back and the men get out.

From Time To Infinity

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On some evenings, when I would sneak out of my room, I'd sit on the verandah and count the streetlights. I'd count the stars in the sky and trace the moon with the tip of my finger and consider how anyone could make it through the night when there were so

Cornfield

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This is not a story you expect to end at Cape Horn.

Helen O., Grand Central, 1959

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No snippet to see, here. The piece is so short a snippet would be the whole thing.

Sophie's Choice

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Sophie is a cat. I tell you this upfront so as not to get you all wound up about moral angst, Nazi's or a mother's love.

The Grape

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I would be reduced to begging on the streets and hoping for a sign of her in soup lines.

The Highwayman Teaches Me About Sex and Death

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hooves moon dark latch eyes rope / Bess the landlord's daughter, the landlord's blackeyed daughter / gun breasts dress shame shouts blood blood blood

That's Grace Too

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I read the ending to her and it was clear to her--clear as it could only be to a woman, to a woman you're in love with--that I had been describing her.

This Is Who I Am

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I'm not interested in her that way.

Don't Wash, Don't Tell

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Butch the Labradoodle sets some necessary boundaries.

Personal Trenches

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The headlines were my source of information and contact. Four Soldiers Killed in Baghdad read one. Seven Ambushed in Fallujah. I’d read them, look for his name, and maybe clip it out. It put me there; put me in touch with him.

Woman

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When you move to the music of a woman

WTF! Godot, a Sex Addict?

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The man in the gray trench coat showed up around a quarter to eight.

Non-Stop Service

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Please direct your attention to the flight attendants as they demonstrate the safety features of this aircraft.

Time

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Tell Bono I want my seventy bucks back.

Macarena Lithuania

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At dinner in Marrakech, Namid danced on the table, waving a white napkin, propelled by jetlag and poor judgment.