2121 11 3
|
The impression old Updike left on a young mind.
|
212144
|
If Single Stroke Seven were a cocktail, it would be a Bloody Mary made of one part Worcestershire sauce, the other part gas station vodka, and ketchup and hot sauce packets swiped from fast food joints. Chill with ice crystals chiseled off freezer walls,
|
21212916
|
a world of probability against plague
|
212020
|
How curious that the thought arrived first in Portuguese; perhaps, after so many years, he was finally becoming Brazilian.
|
2120188
|
"leaves &damage, &shifts of shape"
|
212034
|
We draw a treasure map in the sandwait for the waves to wash it awayI ask you not to leave me stranded hereIf I'm bound for hell, I don't want to be left behindThe sun breaks through the edge of infinityspills over the line, soaking the sky…
|
2120108
|
Wake up, stretch. Check the curtained windows for sunlight or
that dreaded grey frame that forces the covers to come back up
and the alarm clock to be set to ‘Snooze’.
|
211920
|
“Nothing we have here can stop them,” the Lumi said, “We were hoping there might be something in your world we might try.”
“Even if we had something, how would I get it to you?
”We are working on that, in the meantime, will you help us?”
I
|
211971
|
As I lean over the chrome rail and look at the floor on the street level of the mall, I ask myself a question. If I was to fall, I wonder if it would be better to land and lie there with my eyes open or closed. Closed, I decide, would make me look like I was at peace, open…
|
211952
|
My mate and I are owned, but have freedom to take to the endless sky.
|
211966
|
Driving up to the Palisades after 9/11 for a meteor shower
|
21192315
|
It's as if there are little men inside her head, wielding hammers.
|
211944
|
The gaudy belt buckle I got you, which would have been well-received except that you hate gaudy belt buckles.The custom t-shirt I made for you using iron-on felt letters that generously enhanced the shape of your breasts in a way unfit for public display.The wedding…
|
21191312
|
They confess love for Karaoke and metal rock. They have purchased expensive Stratocasters and Zildjians.
|
211944
|
Back arching, spine twisted, muscles tense and turning. I am putting off my work. Jane Eyre is in the back of my mind whispering about childhood patriarchy and I am still clinging to images from dreams before waking; my last lover's face scrunched and…
|
2119109
|
I ordered biscuits and gravy
at the Sunset Grill,
Just before the Amber Alert
|
2119198
|
YKK is a zipper manufacturer whose initials stand for Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushikigaisha. A boy told me (and I believed as a child) that YKK was my name in code.
|
21181615
|
lost in a taxi cab, 4:30 am
|
211843
|
I cannot read one more award winning novel by a female Asian author about the atrocities committed against their childhood, she thought. Then she sat down with her trusty yellow pad and Papermate fineline to write the next lyrical story of a female Asian writer and the…
|
21171211
|
Save the whales. Save the dolphins. Save the bored housewives. Save my hands, so often cupped over the sorrow in being alive. Save the beautiful made-up cherries of delight I feel everywhere in your presence. Save the sprawling…
|
21172319
|
Mack’s mind held a chandelier.
|
211721
|
It’s always daylight there
My brother comes running down the sidewalk
holding out his arms and calling my name
He’s wearing suspenders. He’s gotten thinner
in heaven
He embraces me warmly
wanting us to be friends
I give up trying to re
|
211721
|
Fleas were a constant reminder that humans are food.
|
211761
|
Cold water shocked Ernest's face. The evening with Gracie had his nerves hot and popping. She was his fifth date and the closest to his memory of Sadie in college so far. He looked up at himself in the bathroom mirror with his mouth agape. Redness flooded…
|
21161413
|
|
2116157
|
My editor even said so: “Ralph, the Karmann Ghia is the only car for Henry. The only one he could have possibly driven.”
|
211622
|
After sprouting boobs and a vagina before her sixteenth birthday, a girl watches her divorced father fall from parental grace by drinking ten tequila shots and baring it all for the neighbors to see on his birthday.
|
211651
|
Leave your dog and your dog-eared lovers at the door. I smile at the bouncer, pay my ticket, and wink at a slasher chick. She gets pumped on heavy metal gods and Kwaito
|
2116117
|
My dad at the wheel, my mother's ulcer inflamed, she puked her way across northern Alabama that summer, from Huntsville and the rusting rockets to Tuscumbia, the farthest any of us had been west. We drove through raw, blistered towns,…
|
21162610
|
I avert my gaze to the crab grass pushing through broken concrete, the spent condoms, the empty vodka nips rolling at her stockinged feet...
|
