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The Hunt

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I bought the goldfish at different pet shops out of town, a few at a time, until I had two hundred or more in the freezer.

Hotel Chelsea

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He tells people about the whores, but what he really recalls is when someone from a room above dropped a rug on his patio.

Ordinary Fruit

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I was insufficiently abused as a child.

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

Florida

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Now, at last, she finds what she's been searching for. Worms. Like bitty pale larva, like half-moons of air trapped under fingernails. She thinks she sees one twitch; she blinks more furiously and hates herself for it.

Muse

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This liberated you/ to grind me hard/ on the dance floor

The First Day of Summer

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It is the first day of summer, a blue-green afternoon, and we sit beneath the English oak, Quercus robur. Everything has at least two names. It is the first day of summer, or the last day of something else.

Late July

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The cicadas struck their soundsTheir ribs made a clicking drumThe sound was formed over buckling ribsvibrations sounds like a maracas bangle beatingShe sat up in a lounge chair trying to sleepThe tiny ants she found tickling her armThey crawled from some hole…

Fable

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The Muse stands at the summit of a paragraph playing with a yo-yo.

As the Wine Keeps Flowing

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My blood has turned to flour I've been in Babylon too long My heart was singed by fire But it's drowning in my song We raised a prayer to Mary We had to take our share We took our places in the ferry But we didn't pay the fare And we don't know…

Bert & Ernie: The Pre Nup

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BERT AND ERNIE -- THE PRE NUPBy Roz Warren and Janet GoldenInspired by a recent Supreme Court decision, Bert and Ernie are finally going to tie the knot! Their just signed pre-nup was leaked to us by a Muppet whose identity we've promised not to reveal, in…

FREE

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hot, hot

Prospectus

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The question isn't whether we will survive-/ like rats, we are supremely adaptive-// but whether we should survive.

Crumbling Stones Crush Our Self Esteem

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Jimi and Janis remain fierce and beautiful

Senior Center

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Some of the elderly men and women are coming forward....

Thick Rib of the Lamentation Animal

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This violin of oneself, this rough strum of I, arc of wing over thick rib. This masturbatory chirping like the meat of God clenched in your teeth, an apostrophe giving aloneness possession over the inarticulate, a bridge between chords.

Life of the Writer

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I am a romantic writer, true. But what comes after the romance is what fascinates me. A lover dying is the most beautiful scene I want to write. The most beautiful scene I have yet to write.

Elephant in the City

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No beeping of horns, just complete silence. No panic, just calmness. There’s this one word: serendipity.

Today: Journal, July 21, 2007

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Sex is a sad reason to be alone with someone.

Love, your daughter

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You gave me all of the power, and none of the power.

white lights

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the little white lights i see mean many different things to me

Win Some, Lose Some

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Afterward, at the motel, I asked her why she liked sex so much, and she said she liked the taste.

No Respect

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I roll over on the gurney or bed or whatever they call it and pull down my pants and underpants. The nurse gives me a shot in each cheek.

One of Four

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She stood with her sisters, pretty maids in a row, felt cold despite the scorching spring sun. Heard what the man said but didn’t register; words from the Lord flew around her like the flighty trill of the robins up above. The birds made more sense.

Music Boxes

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Mom would dig through one of her music boxes to pick out Saturday morning's cleaning jams. Tattered, battered Payless shoeboxes with lids ripped to shit, filled to capacity with piles of cassettes; greatest hits albums, mostly, or Time Life compilations of mid-to-late…

SERVICE

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a girl with wolves, dogs and a bear

Oh, Little Bird, You Send Me

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Who are all these rough looking people, hanging over me, itching me with their shaggy grapevines for arms? Like twisting, dangling down painted cloth Gargoyles on a quickly coming apart dried up rope? It's always been the same old perch to view from. You wanted to know…

To my own two feet

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When I first arrived/footling-breeched/you two were there/ahead of me.

Neither star nor killer

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I am fantasy

It's a Beautiful Banana Moon

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and I can't help it if it is. I know it won't stay that way for long, but for now that's all I've got to work with, shining in my window, made of all eight fingers and a couple of thumbs. But the latest pushy words still want to give…