170 23 20
|
After the shooting, they sent the boy away. He returned taller and heavier, a sulkier version of his earlier self.
|
174 32 13
|
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117 16 13
|
The first task was ridiculously easy. You rigged up the ladder from the unlocked communal laundry room. I climbed up and squeezed through the open bathroom window. I was skinny enough then to still fit through the bars, head, shoulders, and all. I opened the…
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121 19 11
|
I drove to you in April / and you loved me all through Illinois
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115 12 9
|
Who owns the moon? What title search/
could ever make a claim?
|
100 15 8
|
This latest married man who lives at a great distance has leeched her energy in that very particular way such men do. Next to him, I am as interesting as long division.
|
122 9 8
|
The fruit of thy womb, the shrapnel embedded in her belly, the damage done, the Lord have mercy. Seagulls throw themselves against the North wind, again and again, a perpetual motion of disappointment.
|
111 9 8
|
I had a crappy room on the fourth floor of a crappy hotel.
|
91 14 7
|
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79 8 7
|
Uncounted hens and piglets/
die at my demand. The killing floor//
runs red for me. I am/
monstrous to creatures small and great,
|
100 7 5
|
They hunger for new real estate/
and those resources underground
|
85 13 5
|
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130 6 5
|
Although I think we can easily work it out because we are not here in the Yale graduate school, and diction is the theme of the story. Diction is a choice in language.
|
84 16 2
|
First published on www.humortimes.com
|
91 7 5
|
For the next two hours, Ed goes nonchalantly about his business, buck naked the whole time. He putters around the house, writes e mails, waters plants, vacuums the rug and sweeps the porch. I pretend to ignore his nudity
|
119 13 3
|
The day you came home, after three extended tours in Afghanistan, I wanted to welcome you at the bus station, but I was afraid you'd attach yourself to me again.
|
117 5 5
|
She thinks this is the place she dreamed
|
57 5 5
|
Wine nourishes, subdues memories, keeps eyes dry, and head heavy. We are up to our third bottle. Your head is on my lap. Gray hair uncombed, you feign sleep. My left arm draped nonchalantly over the curvy edge of the chaise lounge, gold velvet with wine…
|
76 5 4
|
Her thirteen year old daughter had hung herself in the hallway closet of the old house. Now the closet was empty and unused. The door was locked.
|
79 5 4
|
Sometimes the wind comes across the fields and you would swear that it can be known. Going along the one lane there I look out and see those vast spaces and then refocus on to closer on. Swinging the truck into a side road that goes far and far and then left, I pull into…
|
84 6 4
|
|
95 8 3
|
... I thought that if I were really a writer my imagination and the words that originate in it would already have chosen my future.
|
95 6 3
|
“how did I get here?” etc... “Eh?”
(the Chinese joint, in west L.A.)
|
91 6 3
|
Jeremiah Sherwood was Irish, Catholic, and gay.
|
107 4 3
|
Many years ago I visited a nude beach. I undressed at the car and walked with my companions onto a California beach as naked as the day we were born.
|
82 4 3
|
Her smile like fortune’s cannot be coerced but she opens her peignoir. He stares at the sullen bullethole between her breasts, dark blood welling slowly with each heartbeat. Does he bow slightly, turn away whole? You suppose not. She closes the door.
|
70 4 3
|
Napkins have become theater. They're folded so intricately, uniquely, into such a variety of animals and objects and patterns and shapes. A man talking into a microphone, a meat loaf, a soliloquy of cloth, a brain crawling toward a thought. It is astonishing what…
|
94 6 2
|
I suppose to someone unfamiliar with the writing process like Marlene, it looked as if a bomb had gone off in one of those new-age literary bars where people gather to read poetry and drink beer in an effort to introduce a little excitement into their liv
|
101 3 3
|
Have I told you about the time I fell in love with a Colorado beetle?
|
117 4 2
|
We have read your book, but regret to inform you that it is insufficient. This is not to say that you as a person are insufficient, simply that your writing is. When you asked us what percentage of manuscripts we found sufficient, we told you, “Less tha
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