Most recent stories

Gold

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He entered the kitchen, carrying the silver metal scuttle filled with coal. The draught brought in the scent of woodbines. She paused her work, her hands resting inside the bread dough, and breathed deep, having…

Swicks Rule!

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She waves her hand around, says, “Pah!” and starts digging invisible things out of the potato salad with her bare hands.

The 24-hour Date

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We watched kids tweeze snapping turtles out of the park grass. They dropped them into a styrophoam cup and called it the snap turtle home. When they grow up they will bite your arms off, their father said laughing.

Under Water

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When I was six, my father brought home a fishbowl. Look out for the inhabitants, he said. You can play Neptune in their microcosm of the sea.

Seasonal Discord

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“I killed a man.” “Whaaattt???” I'd been meditating on the sun. I figured he was trying to jolt me awake.

Frontiers Yugoslavia Thirty Notwithstanding

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Frontiers Yugoslavia Thirty Notwithstanding (after Tristan Tzara) Responsible badly countries,circumstances better to that, powerlessness.Women these gender-determined “pluralist” conditionSoviet as overall the Women societies little countries.Have official…

Neighbors

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“Hear that?” asks my wife Amy. Books in hand, we relax on our flagstone patio. A shaft of late-day sun borrows through the maples' leafy canopy and deposits a dazzling, sunlit pool on Amy's lap. …

Nurse Cratchett

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She would occasionally grant a surgical intern sexual congress.

We Used To Be Sharks

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I was sitting on the therapist’s couch in someone else’s boxer shorts.

The Thrill of Sky Diving

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It's not that you want to be silkworm all your life. That's what I'm telling my on-again-off-again girlfriend aboard the plane. Her name is Phoebe as in that song about a girl who lived in her own world within the shell of another. Phoebe, I'm saying, to bridge distances…

Hunting the Thylacine

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“Ah, there’s the Tasmanian tiger,” the visitor says in an American accent, maybe midwestern. “It’s called a ‘thyracine,’ right?” “Thylacine, yes.” “Un huh. Thylacine. Extinct now, isn’t it?” “Oh! Let’s hope not

First Lives

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There are some, I am told, who never see the dead, though I am as yet unable to believe it.

Credenza

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Now the house is empty of romance except a potted flowering plant from my mother for Valentine's Day. No man has set foot in my museum since I moved here. One man has set foot. The owner's brother to see about the gasket under the toilet. The Comcast installers, twice. The…

Test Results

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Six weeks, four thousand dollars, and twelve hundred miles later, I figured I was done with the cleansing process.

A Message from Upstate VII

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My wife’s voice behind me says, “Where did you get that godawful tee shirt?”

Sectioned

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“Sorry, I farted,” Ted says after the nurse leaves. He squeezes my hand like he’s telling me grave news.

Another Story About Me And Some Guy

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We met because I hate the actor Bruce Willis.

Hangover

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“You wouldn't believe it.” Peter leaned in to whisper. “Don’t let the Kodak moment with the wife and kids fool you. That guy is totally gay.”

Sisters

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She'd no doubt catch the guy's eye in the act, flash her smile and laugh in his face as an insult or invitation, depending on how she wanted things to go.

other fish

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and so you waits for years, and he decides that all he needs to learn, he can learn from this woman, the contents of her ether being syrupy and more lush in his mouth than all the words of bound philosophy.

The Eighth Wonder of the World

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She says, “He's like, the eighth wonder of the world.” She says this without irony, and this makes you feel embarrassed for her. The laughter in this small, smoky space is getting louder. You chew your chapped lips and put your…

Reversal

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For reasons he couldn't fathom, his motorcycle only moved in reverse. He engaged the engine and lurched backward hard. He called a friend, a gear-head with perpetually dirty nails, asked him to look it over.

Talking Down the Flames

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She'd always been an odd girl, nearly raising herself. As she got breasts and hips the boys complained that she was easy to get in the backseat, but afterward the car wouldn't run, not ever, like the engine died the moment they used her willingness up. So

Turning Thirty

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Of all the authors in the library, it was a wife from Maryland who called out from her marriage dormer I was not to read her.

Let Us Pretend

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"Perhaps a divorce?" she continues, thinking of his thin, long hands and how they almost, not quite, but almost, made their usual pattern on her body, remembering having queried many men on what their most erotic sexual encounter was and found that the an

PIGEONS

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Ellen decided to soft-pedal the one month to live thing. Really, there was barely time for the patient to read Ellen's brochure.

Trees Knees

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A young man pushes a stroller filled with a sleepy child. A young woman strides alongside them, her gait leisurely. They are the first to visit the park today. The trees loom, vigilant.

LYES

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Chusma de la Calle had the most beautiful scarves. Gentle, warm sheaths of silk she kept in a special drawer lined with tissue and rosehip sachets tucked in the corners. She had scarves of every color, but most were shades of her favorite, blue. …

Turtles Don't Have Hair

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“You’ll have to do better than that,” Skip says. My husband laughs. He has a high girlish chuckle when he’s truly delighted. He can sing really high like a girl, too. “All right,” I say. I leave my headband

Two Cinquains

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SPOT ON OUR LUNG We sense A stillborn dawn. A furtive, lurking gray, A sleight of dusk, eclipse, that follows Us. TITANIC'S LANTERNS Upon My rain-glazed panes Wet lights from neighbors glow Like lantern beams from shipwrecks…