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The Bicycle

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

Would You Ask A Librarian For A Lap Dance?

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In the 15 years that I've worked at my local public library, I've learned that we librarians do plenty of things for our patrons that aren't in our job descriptions. After a patron asked me to change her flat tire, and another wanted to check out our pencil sharpener,…

The Light at the End of You

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I'm reading your remains.

Apartments

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. . . there is nothing so selfish as sleep.

Listening to Neil Young on a Gray Day and Understanding Clearly What My Grandfather Told Me Long Ago

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I'm a lot wiser now but so what?

My Wife, My Love

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When I died, she said, she was going to have me cremated and put my ashes in the cats’ litter box.

Inner Charlie

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When Charlie woke up he couldn’t find his inner Charlie.

The Counter Where Names Go To Die

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One day a woman, one of several translators at Ellis Island, asks him why he has changed a passenger’s name from Checzowicz to something else. “The name was too long,” he says. “Ten letters.” She replies, “But you didn’t change O’Shaughnessy, and it has

Lost and Found

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list: almond message oil almond sunset tea dark chocolate 80% dry rhubarb soda lavender bath oil musk candles red light bulb

Halloween

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"For God's sake," my mother said. "There could be anthrax in the candy." My mother worried about me going out on Halloween.

While the Light Lasts

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Smoke from bodies aflame tongues the strung moon;

Lying to the Boss

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I was having festive sex flashbacks and wasn't thinking sharply.

Hotel Khadijah

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"A prostitute of the Hotel Khadijah in Rahab fell in love with my father...."

Autobiography

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The story of my life/ would put insomniacs to sleep.

Wolves and Butterflies

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But I do not dig graves, only cradles...

Let the Others Drool

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They are all sleeping, but I know better. I will keep watch and if he comes tonight I will be alert and ready. When he arrives he'll see the slack mouths, the graceless sprawls, hear the grunts, snorts and snores of the other women and then he'll sense me. My eyes will…

Mayweather

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where I'm from

Happy Hour

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We were in the car more than anywhere else. A few days driving, then a few days to get back home.

A New Kind of Madness

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in my youth I was enamored of the moon—that is to say, lunacyI applauded the bizarre in natureI appropriated the gratuitous from dreamsI drank brashness and frenzy from bookswhat mad things I did!(throwing a bucket of water on the naked couple in the bed)what…

An Irish Seder

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The promise of free food and drink was too much to pass up since I hadn't played a gig in months and was living on peanut butter and celery. When Kelly called I was too hungry and thirsty for drink to turn him down.

Hemingway for Gloria

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He disliked intrusion and very specifically innocuous intrusion, nice guys, one might say, who tried to be near him to learn something from him or who admired him but who, as in that passage, came merely to disturb his work.

George

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he makes his way back / to the ocean, back to the popcorn, back / to the pinball machines

Brick Walls

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A flash in seven chapters.

Beautiful Girls

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and all the beautiful girls are in the river And they went in dirty But they came out clean

tacos are a flowering plant just south of here

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"we are all headed to be forsaken by animal hearts a mountain of poor"

Alice Invading the Garden

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I'm Alice invading the garden, looking for souls among cards

Heartbreak Waiting To Happen

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I should have created a first-date questionnaire heartaches ago.

Zero

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My round belly is deflating. I disappear a little more by the day. It's been weeks. Soon, I may not even be here.

Salt

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Betty shakes herself out of her reverie and sprinkles a bit more salt on Frank's meatloaf. Over the last few weeks, usually when she's in the kitchen, her mind wanders to Florida. Betty loves Florida, loves the retirement community where her sister Esther lives.She pours…

Evil Humors

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I blame it all on evil humors. Something's leaking.