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Central Washington State On Five Dollars A Day

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The tailfins of our ’57 Plymouth Fury dip and rock from the stress: Three boys—say no more?—jumping into the car. And Dad, loading suitcases into the trunk, working them around the steel cooler heavy with Cokes, root beers, ice. He slams the trunk lid dow

Cornfield

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This is not a story you expect to end at Cape Horn.

In Dreams

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I always wanted to head on up to New York City and be taught by a decent painter, but as time kept on trucking, it became clear that that was just a big dream that would not shake out and I'd never be a real artist because I was shy of the money I'd need to stay up there in…

Crossties

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Regrets lined behind him like crossties on a railroad track.

~drug abuse prevention panties~

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She locked herself in the bathroom, turned on the tap and poured lavender Suave shampoo all over them and rinsed them till they no longer bled. She took off all her clothes and tried on a pair, turning in front of the mirror, thrusting her hips, pout

Didn't I always let you have one of my cigarettes?

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I liked the taste in my mouth, mint and cigarettes and fresh and filthy.

Why We Came to Target at 9:58 on a Monday Night

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Donnie remembers just in time. So we run practically every stop sign and red light in town, and get there just before they close.

Cabrito

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Mariposa, the skinny hound, crawls out from under the trailer

Third Time's the Charm

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No jobs except drinking...

Doesn't mean I love you

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I’m practically naked; coral sundress, very damp panties, black with lace insets. I know I still smell like pussy.

Wince

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Lately he's been wanting to write about love...

Car

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My father brought home a turquoise Porsche with red leather upholstery. My sister and I were small, eight and six, and fit tightly in the jumpseats behind my parents.We went for a ride, tooled around Rome, circled the Colosseum, showing off for the people looking. My father…

10 Easy Steps to a Better Intellectual Life

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Let’s face it, there are simply too many things too know these days.

Dumb Luck

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“What sort of truck was it in Texas?” Carlisle says. “Small as truck goes,” Mill says. “Smaller than a full-size pick-up.”

Nothing

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Nobody goes over there cause that’s where the body was found. A little one. Half in and half out the water, waded up like paper.

Take Your Gun to Work Day

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In a rousing show of support for guns and the owners who love them, the Legislature passed and Governor Greg Abbott gleefully signed a law proclaiming April 15 as Take Your Gun to Work Day in Texas.

Almanac

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I said, “Marcy, Source Almanac is a guide for the Apple.”

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

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It is with great sadness I announce the passing of Ann Bogle on February 28, 2023 after a brief illness. Ann was longtime contributor and editor of these pages and a champion of small press and emerging writers.I knew Ann since the late 1970's when she was an undergraduate…

Chatter

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The night before his mother's teeth began chattering.

The Common Cold

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There was dad sitting at the table, wide awake, reading glasses on nose, pen in hand above a Doppler graph of numbers on paper, one of many now-lost theorems, looking up as his son walked into the room.

The Gulf

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My 99 year old mother...

The Goodbye Meets the Hello at the Station

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"You come to nature with all your theories, and she knocks them out flat."--Renoir "Dreaming is free."--Blondie "I can't vouch for my ability to avoid dullness..the odd position in which poets find themselves explains their often-sentimental identification with the…

The Wreck of Me

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“You’re a hard habit to break,” I said. My tongue was flaring. Flirting with nurses was my father’s thing.

Ordering a muse over the phone

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"Well, I'd like to inquire about getting a muse. It says in your ad that you provide muses for people who are creatively challenged by their art form."

October is the month when your dog dies

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Forging

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Taken by agents of the United States of America, Felix Six-Killer grows up at the Carlisle Indian School near Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. His hair is cut and oiled. His shirts are starched and creased. For months he is startled to find himself seated for…

Landing

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She’s witnessed her mother’s terror on the day of the hurricane, and she demanded for the first time in her life that her mother do something her mother did not want to do.

Gossip

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Gossip Betty Martini divorces husbands when they least expect it. On a seeming whim, she pays a visit to dear Arnold, who keeps her papers handy in his top desk drawer. She initials here and there, signs with a…

Etude, Prelude, Nocturne, Polonaise

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proving little more/ than the player’s keyboard dexterity.

The Color of Sound

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The girl put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in cupped hands and this was for comfort but she appeared symmetrical the way an etheric visitor might and the brightness was just then trying to find a way through an opening in morning dining room…