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Paul Gauguin: Annah la Javanaise

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It's the outrage of the red monkey at her feet, And the nude thirteen-year-old woman sitting upright In the blue velvet chair, and the hints of blue at her navel, And at her lips and belly and crotch, that so upset Paris. Gauguin had his nerve

After Grief

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Within a day, she had a scummy apartment which belonged to the government. It had cockroaches, which she was not used to. They churned her stomach, repulsive little things. Not even creatures. Two brains, she'd read: one in the head, one in the ass.

MONSOON

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a beautiful cool quiet day

Anaphylaxis

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The reaction had started, the hives and respiratory swelling. Maddy huffed for air, each inhalation rattling her throat louder, more hoarse.

Hip-Hop Lit: New and Noteworthy

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Her son was doubtless the biggest wanksta that ever went to Andrew Jackson in the whole crumby history of the school.

Turtles Don't Have Hair

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“You’ll have to do better than that,” Skip says. My husband laughs. He has a high girlish chuckle when he’s truly delighted. He can sing really high like a girl, too. “All right,” I say. I leave my headband

Two poems

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I cut myself. Often. The bloodslice like thin lips parted/in prayer. life’s color drained to ashen/as the old world spins, pirouettes/like a circus dog on the back/of a galloping horse.

Bright Red Leaf

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Little scoundrel Name of leaf, No one knows He's a thief. The shadows stretch, The birds fly south, And summer's a word Of ash in the mouth When all of a sudden The colors are gone But for a red…

Pictures of Mona

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Jersey's ex-girlfriend calls him on a Saturday in the fall and asks if he'll help her find her cat. She says it ran off on her while she was taking it for a walk in the park. He thinks for a second about asking her why she was taking a cat for a walk in the first…

A Good Sized Puddle Suits the Fish Between My Ears

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Tell me everything about yourself, if I could care, I can pretend, let me pretend.

ROLLING LIKE THUNDER

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The ocean smelled like decomposed plant life and clinically despicable vagina, but I still spoke of its power and my fear of it in moonlit clichés and she still listened.

Henry Ground

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Henry Ground was a healthy and well adjusted English man who excelled at chess and folk dancing. One day, for no apparent reason, he decided to fill his guinea pig with helium. He carried the animal under the light of the stars into the shed at the bottom of his garden.…

Monsters

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I have always been frightened of Ferris Wheels

Combinatorics

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“I'm thinking about math class,” she said. “The solution to three factorial.” “Easy,” Leo said.

Four Days before Thanksgiving, Boston to Colorado

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The daughter's trip, a travail, cross country; the painkillers were not the finisher mom needed—and the white sheets of the institution were too thin to provide her any comfort as she dreamt of swimming; a backstroke suspended over a waterless pool.Her father…

Getting to Work

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And I don't know how long it will be until she comes outside and figures it all out. Figures me out.

Dakar 1989

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Everyone runs to the plane but me. I get the last seat (middle of 5), crush men’s bags on my way. I’m white & female. They glare.

Her Side of the Story

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I can't even tell you when it all started to come apart, but I do know that they're just nervous tics, responses to stress. We all go through it.The fact is I wouldn't even be bringing up any of this if it wasn't for the fact of the… incident… Shit, I know I wasn't…

The Tortoise in the Hair

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Pete told me, honest to God, that the first night he had that tortoise back home with him, he woke up the next morning bald. The damn thing had eaten off all his hair. So then Pete figured he'd strike up a deal with Clarence Magee, the barber.

Valentine

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"His middle name is Valentine, and when asked about it, he isn't sure why."

Trees on Fields

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Dear Jackknife Ponderosa, I'm stupid. Let's move on. Let's move past the part where I complain, where I struggle with circumstance, where I display my petty arms, and shoot holes in the air. …

Miracle Bra for my behind

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Do you want an ass mi Nina Bonita? I buy you jeans that work like a Miracle Bra for your behind.

Swaying on This Articulation Until We Slow

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In Nebraska, I looked up from the flatness, to her face, then down to the page and saw this: Real people have joy.

Imaginary Photo Album

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Let me swim into your eyes. Let me show you my world. My album. My Albania. My albumen.

To All the Sisters on My iPod

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It was a wake-up call. A sign that I needed to stop and ask if I was making wise and sensible life choices. My iPod was full.

The Color of Sleep

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Have you ever seen a body of words give birth to a paragraph? I won't lie. It's a little gross. But quite moving. First there is the biology of reproduction. A blackbird living in an electric guitar, for instance, and its inexplicable urge to mate with an elephant.…

the custodial cats of the fulcrum of memory + three

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“the calendar of my future was in there!”/ yes: all tomorrows belong to the dead cats,/ their decisions relinquish one day per day.

Reconceiving the Resurrected

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among and begin / bouquets

I Love a Man Who Whistles

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“Hey! You can’t be whistling on Greyhound,” the bus driver said, looking up in the rearview mirror.

Time

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time. Night after night he's up, restless. What if she knew his plans? If only he'd bypass his miscalculations and slip through