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Tracks

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The winter following their son's death, Mr. Kelly's wife became absorbed by the tracks that ran in back of their house. At any given hour in the night, he'd hear her in the next room, their son's old room where she now slept, shuffling through dresser drawers. He…

The Nondescript

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Her arm rests at her feet on the platform. She wears the remains of tiny leather boots. She is naked except for her boots. For a hundred years she wore a Russian dancer’s dress.

Cooking

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  His grandmother's recipe called for the pasta dough to be beaten with a bone--and not just any bone either. It had to be a human femur. This was his first hurdle. Where would he get such a thing at this hour in this part of town? Or, for that matter, at any…

Mausoleum

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you might as well be blind

March for Me

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A son packs his bag - bottled water, extra masks, and jerky. Mom paces behind him. “Don't go.”

Threshold

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But we proliferated back

This place exists outside of time

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I'm Icarus in Brueghel's painting. My wings as it turned out were made of wax. Mothers, tell your daughters this truth. You cannot fly so close to the sun.

The Fine Madness

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A phrase, a sentence, a stanza,/ sounds among the sums and lists/ and starts a scratched cascade/ of syllables and other approximations--

Who In This Room Shared a Drink with Johnny Cash? (Memoir)

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...where I grew up the only celebrity one could count on seeing was Santa Claus...

Diary of a Lost Girl

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They were all in love with tortured musicians, 22-year-old geniuses who hanged themselves after making one perfect album. The musicians generally lived in England. It was safer that way.

ROAD TRIP

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to visit an old friend

Mon Oncle

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Mrs. L. was sitting on a love seat in her nightgown. She was sitting in a man’s lap....

buttons

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stepped away from meafter leaning on melike I was a wallmy face felt stiffyour fingers stoppedyour body was coldthrough my clothesI touched your buttons

Osmotic potential

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Guttering semiotics, The jeremiads of delirium; Drinking lukewarm tea over a late candle Like Hamlet in a power-cut; Affecting his own audience of himself, Hastening soliloquies through gritted sophisms, Withered and spun to intentional…

Bookmark

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He opened an old book,flipping through its yellowedpages. A small piece of blue paperfell to the floor; he picked it up."Meet Tom at 4:00. Julius Bar."Standing there, Tom appearedas he sat down with the note,putting Tom back together:Tall, he remembered; Irish,green eyes…

Father Dunne's School for Wayward Boys #5

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The big wigs call it aiding and abetting. I became an left-handed accountant with a tendency to fudge numbers for the damned.

Fantasy of Hands

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Mr. Pickle and Mr. Peet

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We got a sandwich at Mr. Pickle's, but they cut the sandwich in the plastic. Plastic wrap.

Tomatoes and Onions on the Bed

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That led to the first aid box on the bed at 3 in the morning, but what about those veggies?

That's all, folks...

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I’m supposed to be writing poems but it’s Saturday morning and I’m watching cartoons.

WHAT I LEARNED IN HEBREW SCHOOL

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There was a big pile of dirt in back, where the little Hebrew School bochurs would play King of the Mountain—tugging, tearing, biting, punching, using whatever weapons they could get their tiny hands on to topple whoever scrambled up the mound first.

Scent of danger

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Sitting in the SUV awaiting the trooper behind us I felt a warning tingle.

Cracked Heart Reigns in My Eyes

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Rainy eyes fall fast somewhere close to me Riding the wind like lust

Crackle

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As he brushes his shoulders against other people's shoulders until he almost has no shoulders –

four haiku

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years later ghosts enter. . . .

God, the Father

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I was right to fear the God of my father He is a monster.

Handy in a Denny's Parking Lot

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A compliment is candy to the heartbroken, oxygen to a suffocating flame. The best hunter picks his prey carefully, selecting his line like an archer pulling an arrow from a quiver, quickly and efficiently, then flick! the line cuts through the air and…

16 Rules to help you become a Writer

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Get comfortable with criticism

Doors

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Marge came home with a Doors CD.

Two Takes on a Flickering Moth

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Take 1. The Love Letter to an Unspoken Name Well we're beyond our appointed Moment now. We must step On what's left, alone, but That begs some explanation to These days that pinball between Stars and to the sad dreamers…