1885 9 3
|
The year I lick so much windowpane off stamps I have to use Elmer's glue to back the twenty-center for a postcard cash request to my mother, that I am alive note at the end of term, is the year of all the "wine" parties.
"Wine" is what we put down
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1324 9 2
|
Dear Sir/ Madam I wish to apply for the position you advertised in the Daily Sun. Although my expertise is in self-obliteration and self-worth (or lack of), and my work mainly in disappointment, I do have much experience in failure, which this letter will…
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1081 6 3
|
Can we meet in the desert,
I will stand with a cactus flower clenched
between my teeth and balance en pointe.
I will tame snakes and find your serpent
tongue with my eyes closed.
I will usher in the clouds, when it grows hot,
and, should you becom
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1201 1 2
|
she goes jogging with the feet of an angel the sound of crunching leaves like wrapping paper torn open to reveal an expensive doll and the light in her mother's eyes.
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1526 4 2
|
when the sun goes down alone
vice is forgotten in the night wind
your lover's voice
on the phone
held fast in the balance
of gravity and momentum
overcoming inanimate objects
and the unknown
|
1178 5 4
|
I had the idea for a pageant for my obedience school at spring graduation
|
1076 7 2
|
If I should stumble into cheerfulness/
remind me of all the business models
|
1190 5 4
|
Swatches of Chinese silk in vivid red and lavender fly through the air. My granddaughter in her mid-thirties reaches for the cloth. I see in her mirror a shape forming; a slim, gray haired woman with a spring in her step. I pause to admire my reflection and pass over the…
|
1009 5 3
|
The questions piled up so high I thought I'd neverget through the door.The ease of alcohol, the incline of submission. Guttural sounds and spittle.Wipe down the morning afterwith a shower.Redress in last night's clothes.There's coffee if you want it.Sincerity too -no,…
|
1769 6 3
|
Your life is going to change—how many times was that prediction offered in one form or another during my wife’s pregnancy? Mothers often said it with a bliss-touched smile; fathers with a smirk that was both sardonic and conspiratorial, and a distinct
|
1081 4 4
|
“What. Is. That?” Sid asked, staring at the shaggy ball of fur sitting in the living room. Its tongue hung out of its mouth and its tail beat against the carpet.“This is Ranger,” his mom said. “I don't know what breed he is, but he's a sweetie…
|
1359 6 2
|
A year ago, my neighbor was a sexy graduate student in fashion design, sounds perhaps shabby, yet if it is, then we in the Middle West are all shabby. That girl's father graduated from high school with Bob Dylan in Hibbing, not entitling her to a child.
|
808 3 3
|
Then there was the time I splurged, hoping a higher-priced phone might keep me from slamming it against the wall.
|
1474 7 2
|
Frank must have said "don't touch" about a million times over the course of the day
|
1133 5 3
|
Your face seems faint against the violet glades; The long winds echo once, then fail to start. Some wounding scent has stripped my hopes apart That dwelled to scent you. From the cavalcades The leaves make, bare at times since eve's sting fades To…
|
1700 8 3
|
"My boy Jake fell in with a bad crowd when he went to college," Coffelt says, shaking his head. "A bunch of accounting majors."
|
1372 6 3
|
My poems have appeared in four different publications; three have died shortly after they ran my stuff. Coincidence, or something more sinister?
|
1282 6 3
|
“I mean it, Hanna. I don't want you to.” But his leg felt carved away where her head had lain. One stupid thing jostling another for attention. He was afraid that if she touched him again, he'd have her on the ground.
|
950 4 4
|
...her facial twitches, gasps and whines, her moments of trapped silence.
|
1585 4 3
|
On Day 1122 at 4:14 AM the door which has remained since installation firmly glued to the masonry behind opens and a man emerges blinking shielding his eyes against fine stinging snow.
|
341 3 3
|
They wear their bodies recklessly, these cempazuchitl, these flowers of the dead.
|
1516 1 1
|
I. The girl within the sleeping woman dreams her dream of ending. To her comes the cowgirl with no kids: she's riding high atop her turquoise horse, steady by its braided mane. Silver pistols holstered. The girl in the woman in the dream she's dreaming…
|
1988 7 3
|
Conversation becomes Electra, as do her eyes. Electra’s head is grey, like the head of my Frau Freud, Martha. Her intelligent irises are darkly pigmented, and her sclerae are edged with a dramatic, black line of the sort that Cleopatra affected. In ou
|
1461 8 2
|
“They’re Rocky Mountain Oysters,” the blond said. “Fresh. You’ll absolutely love them Jim.”
|
1155 3 4
|
If she does not get to him in time, / all is lost.
|
1447 6 3
|
Your finger quivers as it writes
Upon me words in water,
Words I cannot read nor drink
But feel them as you drink
Them with your tongue
|
1088 4 3
|
He began to chop the powdery substance and separate it into segments.
|
1324 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.
|
859 4 3
|
What if it was all cut and calculated.
|
1524 3 3
|
Do you know first hiss of batter hitting groundnut oil in a shallow pan, I ask, on a morning after a long, dream-ridden sleep?
|