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Mutants

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Elin and I had religious differences about the garage. To her the garage required regular sweeping and organization--it was an extension of our house. Elin believed dust and mold to be manifestations of inner sin. I insisted that they were agents of evolu

Cognitive Therapy in Russian

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We aren't designed for darkness. Something deep inside of us, something much older and deeper than us is telling us to move away, get to warm, because if we don’t, come winter we will die.

The Black Hole

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Matilda went wild at sixty-five. Legs left unshaven for the first time in fifty years, hair still and proud, knotted with forgetting. She’d roam the streets at night, a traveler without design. Matilda was a gardener of sorts, digging up all previous assu

Well, I LOVE Darkness . . . But I've Chosen YOU!!!

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The elevator door opened, and Tom ("The Baffler") Frank found himself confronted by Jesu bar Joseph, who opined: "You're WORTHLESS!" and recommended: "Why dontcha PULL your PANTS down, and CUT your COCK off!"

fragments of their lives survive

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Only fragments of their lives survive, like broken Sapphos. I have known them, alleged killer of themselves for the love of a man., but we know this is an invention. The leader of a whole guild of girls, who wrote 7 books of poems. What happened to them

The Tourists

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They acquire him in a bar that is famous for its shipwrecks.

There's a Panther in my Poodle

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There are glasses in the sinkfrom the water that I drink.And the books in my li-braryare not dumb and ordinary.There's a doggie at my door;did I go to the pet store?There's a puppy on my couch-ywho was happy, now she's grouchy.Was a writer, now an authoror an otter; no, an…

Ginger

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I didn't tell her how deeply a terrible weakness for ginger haired people ran in our family, how fortunes had been lost only because of a red beard, a freckled shoulder of exquisite paleness, or a pink nipple.

Looking at the Light of the Moon on the Sea

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It was hard, in the crowded vacation house, to make love as they would have alone.

Gloss

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Follow my finger up the canyon wall, past the Chevy wedged into its own ferocious orbit. It was that innocent...

The House

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Two stories, limestone, gray shutters,next to the park.“We almost bought that house,” my father always saideach time we drove by.He doesn't go down that street anymore.What could have been taunts him from the sidewalks —two little girls and a bucket of…

the leisure to walk about sweetly

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You seemed to have that leisure to walk about sweetly when I was with you, honey-singing the reward for the intensity of emotion you lunged about in. Nothing seemed like it was going to hurt or harm anyone, even while I was going nuts between the legs.

Awaken Sleepy Star

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Don't sleep. Tiny orange Balloons like seahorses are bobbing This way and that trying To get your hair to lift Off its marvelously mud- Swamped and pillowy support beams, blue sea strand by green. Don't you want to see…

Beneficial

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Had I said something before, she might could have saved a little face by telling me to go to hell before we tumbled into the covers. All right. Again, I was no gentleman. Send me to hell. Whatever. I lay there on my back, my arm around her, and listened t

High Jinks

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“Gorgonzolla!” The remnant croaked, his eyes wild as he thrust an open hand in Jaffron's direction. A burst of energy tilted Jaffron's pod on its axis and sent it hurtling backwards...

Oh, Myth...

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Philip Ahearn woke up in an empty field. Last night had been one hell of a party - he almost hooked up with Rosamund - and, at the time, it seemed wiser to crash outside than to drive and really crash. But he wasn't a kid anymore and sleeping on the…

Apples to Apples

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“Honey, remember when we used to take you out to pick apples.” A sweet trickle of sound shattered the force field of silence that divided the front and the back seats of the dark blue Honda CR-V. Juliana’s only response was to change her focus from the w

55 words #7

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Let's make a monetary enticement for writers who can revel in the magnitude of this tragedy...

from Flatlander's Suite

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Under nervously flickering fluorescent lights / your name will grow / fed by the tongues of Those Who Never Leave

Wedding Day

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A bride, dressed in white gown and flowing veil, totters in high heels down the uneven pavement past Simone’s Café. She holds a bouquet of red and orange chrysanthemums. Three men, wearing black tuxes, accompany her; one of them holds up the hem of her dr

His Nightmares

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Motionless seconds turned

FREE

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hot, hot

rib envy

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Flowers I didn’t like God or else nature must have had some brief happiness over. But it’s just forgetfulness for an old goddess like me, goddess of the moon, of hunting, of chastity once, since now I have changed. My opened flowery bosom went on to bec

A Quandry

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On the river he rows a dory. It is filling with water. There is a rectangular hole in the bottom.

The Bicycle

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Oh what fun they had riding that bike! What adventures! They went everywhere, in town and out.

Snapshots

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“Do you have a job? Are you going back to school,” I asked, you know, because I’m hip like that.

The Empty City - Chapter 1 - Early Summer

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Every day the trains transported the young and successful and the not so young and less successful who belonged to the five buildings.

PLAYGROUND

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Marie shrugs. “Maybe she’s just late. Come on, let's wait by the jungle gym.” She runs over and starts climbing. The jungle gym is closest to the path that goes into the woods and down into the canyon. She has to get him into the woods somehow.

Fishers of Hope

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June Day sprinted with urgency through the halls of the Armistice. Whenever she passed a window looking out into space, if it wasn't already covered, she didn't bother looking out, but not because of her hurry; no one did anymore. She was young, but the…

Here's Looking at Euclid

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