Most read stories

Half a Lotus

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An Ayurvedic astrologer tells her that she is a child of India. Is a girl born in Indiana a mistake of just two letters on a Scrabble board?

Training Exercise

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The other day I’m in the backyard with one of my kids, doing what he’s calling a training exercise, which is basically the two of us with flashlights, shinning the beams over the grass and up into the night to see what we can see.

(From an Awakened Sleep)

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pluck me from the charred grate

After Detox

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When detox-man drives away, the windows down, the radio playing on the classic rock station (The Eagles), he thinks about moving out of town.

Turtle Summer

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He was her summer fling, the first cock to crow when the sun rose over her tequila smile.

The Death App

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The phone owner pre-writes his or her dying words! The app stores them and releases them at the moment of his death!

Hand and Thumb

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Often we sit in silence and age. We are observers of dust, fashioning ourselves into antiques.

Epithelial Sample

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I found my black dot nucleus. School got me in the 10th year with the numbers spilling outta my head, but now I got the cell on my mind. Everybody's floating around this joint all pink and green college clean, yellow face Japanese, or the jet-headed Greeks with their…

The Way Back Home

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

Homing Pigeons

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Sometimes, they beat their masters home...

John Lennon Slept Here (Or Was It Ringo?)

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Why is the ghost of John Lennon haunting a house in rural Oregon?

Lovelies on the Last Shore

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All of those lovelies, pitched on the ground, ignored and ready to rot.

Snuggie your Life Away

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Who is the moron that invented the Snuggie?

Squirrel Boy, You Are My Toy

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unbury yourself from the silt and give me some seal love.

Not from the self but from the Other

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meanings figure into traffic streams reds fade, trickle down the long ‘V' another passing human ear; tall, tall buildings paper poised on horizon. situations gape in and out of seconds corners turn to disappearance, witness follows fingers…

My Fictional Tormenter

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Having a single blurb on your book cover is like having a single friend in grade school. So I lied.

Clay Women

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"... I knew Willie had gone— out the back door or out the side window. I knew he probably slipped over the fence behind my house into Lou C.’s backyard..."

Phantom Sister

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We wonder if this is how we tangled in our mother's womb: hands to feet to heart.

Bedbugs

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I'm in awe of her frankness, how she takes my breath away, how I wish to rush off with her to a splendid hideaway where only the two of us touch the grape-stained mountains and the cerulean sea, wild blades of grass quivering with the breeze. Sometimes th

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.

Time

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Tell Bono I want my seventy bucks back.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation... When I Wasn't Drinking

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This is what my summer has come to: me, out of a job, aimlessly driving around the city looking for places to write, places to read, places to occupy my time.

Mississippi Burning

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“There are no inhibitions in here,” the postman shouted, gesturing at the dance floor with his Marlboro Light, the glowing tip aimed at a woman in a taut skirt. Leaning far forward, her hands nearly touching the plywood floor, she planted her feet and beg

Out of the Loop

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Ed wants to watch the last half of the football game. His wife wants him to mow the lawn.

Rook

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What can I say about my brother, Stroman. We are twins and we hate each other. He is an honest, brave man with scruples. He is full of bullshit. He thinks I am morally twisted. He probably has a point there, but I don’t see what that has got to do with

Hold Your Shield, Front Guard

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Casting nets like Jesus to a metaphor sea Admittedly as weak as me But I need the hike, Like we still like Ike To tell us about the Military Industrial Complex Though he never told us what came next

Don't Wash, Don't Tell

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Butch the Labradoodle sets some necessary boundaries.

One A.M. at the Beau Rivage

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After the show they talked at the famous comedian, reaching the way they do, with their arms. Their arms are curved a good way, a better way than the older white planes of my own.

Paris

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the boredom inherent in living in the suburbs

Mr. Smashface eats fast food at Supermarket # 9

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