2087 5 3
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Now, gazing into Greg’s expectant eyes, the only Chinese word Deepti could summon was kuei. Ghost. Before that summer, her mother flipped through the pages of Maxine Hong Kingston’s memoir every day, as if she could glean magic from the touch of her finge
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208731
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You never knew How to express What you didn't know You felt With your words You picked on You taunted You destroyed Did it help To feel yourself Did it work To disparage Those who were Innocent and young Blameless For living …
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208793
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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.
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2087117
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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,…
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208631
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I sit in my chemise like a forgotten rag doll on the stool before my vanity. My body is postured towards nothing in particular, my gaze keeps returning to vacant; it’s far preferable to any fixed sight it could find.
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208661
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At dinner in Marrakech, Namid danced on the table, waving a white napkin, propelled by jetlag and poor judgment.
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208663
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Cap'n Pepper tries and tries but Old Salty is never happy.
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208673
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i imagined myself & i was phlox saxifrage pompom ranunculus
poppy anemone ornamental onion rattlesnake red ribbon nerine
& i loved the painted tongue
& i wore the rattlesnake
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2086114
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Gladstone called him a ‘goddam nihilist’--
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208564
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In grief, I'd ride a slow train there with you, /
one hand in yours and one hand on the rail,
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208510
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And my word! Wouldn’t you know it, in two shakes of a jiffy they have shucked off all their clothes and are butt naked right here in my den. I don’t have to wonder what Mother would say if she could see them here. “Keep the noise down, boys!” I ha
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208573
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It was only later, much later, that we would discover that the war we were fighting was a war between ourselves. Melissa and I left the machine, with Carlton lost forever inside. We abandoned the warehouse. Our backs were scalded from the heat, and the hole in the…
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2085148
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Trying to hide, and yet, what continued to permeate was the shiny.
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208561
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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…
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20842614
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After each piece cancelled the other
the generals folded up their checkerboards,
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2084123
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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.
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20841615
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lost in a taxi cab, 4:30 am
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208474
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Why can't you mimic your mythical counterpart? Anna Karenina? Have you never considered the tall dark stranger? The boot to the face, the fangs on the neck? Vronsky is Russian Gentry, a veritable prince and he swept that Anna off her feet in two sec
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20841314
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Alone on the platform, I waited for a train.
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208320
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“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
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2083157
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My editor even said so: “Ralph, the Karmann Ghia is the only car for Henry. The only one he could have possibly driven.”
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20832319
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Mack’s mind held a chandelier.
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208300
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“For Chrissake! Just get me one of fucking Tony's half-assed, made in China bullshit, getaway cars. My plate is hot!” I had never hated cars so much before. Not so much the cars, but the sound the cheap ones made when they drove past my house. The…
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20832013
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She offers the girl a seat, asks her to stay for a minute, but she can’t, she just came by to say hello, and don’t you like my new raincoat?
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2083146
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Imagine the poem written with a pistol at your head.
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2083108
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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’.
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20832210
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"You are wolves circling, eyes burning in the dark...."
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2082148
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It's not loneliness I'm afraid of. It's how I would be happy to be alone too much.
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20822411
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whistling some blithering tune, trotting around the kitchen in his underwear with his ribs, a long row of meatless tragedies that screamed for something other than the meal he was making.
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2082189
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