1833 23 13
|
Could sampans fall upward, sailing from the bottom of the Earth? If so, which way would their sails bend—up, or down? And would the strange China Sea follow suit? Would salt water geysers spurt from the hole we dug, flooding the streets of Seattle?
|
1453 23 15
|
Pa grasps my fingers, odd because he's never held my hand and he's dead ten years anyway.
|
3150 6 4
|
K is eating a banana. He says to me, "There is no end in the sense that God is dead, or history is dead. I would prefer not to play the role of a thoroughly useless prophet. I leave that to others, like Gene McCarthy."
|
1579 21 13
|
|
3684 25 15
|
My brother was the catcher, and we were having sex. I was waiting to be scared. In our act, he would swing upside down from the bar, hanging by his knees, his arms extended, and I would fly into his chalky grip.
|
1230 27 14
|
Its intelligence won’t be/
diminished when you take/
a bone saw to its cranium
|
1779 22 14
|
|
1461 19 15
|
“What does the future hold?”
|
2358 7 9
|
Mother still calls pomegranates “Chinese apples,” much to my embarrassment.
|
1279 27 14
|
|
3088 5 5
|
"A little knowledge truly is a dangerous thing."
|
2473 24 11
|
That was one option. Another was to assemble all the resident grunts...on one side of the island, jump up and down in unison, flip it over, and see if life on the bottom was any better.
|
1430 17 14
|
I'd laugh, cry, splutter with confusion or outrage. I'd probably say “Duh” a lot, grow pale, flush, and wink at the viewers. I'd furrow my eyebrows, raise one or both, and my eyes would narrow, widen,…
|
1694 16 16
|
There's a mirror in front of me and I thought it was so I could see myself, but I didn't want to see me.
|
1354 22 14
|
Over the years, his face
began to alter
|
1950 23 12
|
Down cellar, my father showed me where he kept his beer stash. It was in a cubbyhole under the bulkhead, where Mom never thought to look.
|
1349 23 13
|
I am abandoned to the mundane/
calculations of a small mind/
trapped by small considerations
|
1659 15 16
|
You should be calling 911
|
1597 16 14
|
fire rolls through
the drive-thru
|
2621 23 6
|
Cavett asked McCarthy what she thought was overrated about Hellman. McCarthy–never known to mince words–replied “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.'"
|
1322 27 14
|
At some point, my lottery number/
was in the mid 300s. I was safe/
for whatever reason. No need/
to burn my draft card.
|
1255 17 14
|
He was a liability. I knew I had to ditch him.
|
1182 11 10
|
44 miles out
the gauntlet of Red River pines
cast shadows pointing north.
|
1532 13 11
|
i was jus countin' your heartbeats, Emmie
and you know what?
i think they's the same as mine!
|
1556 5 6
|
Being a grandparent is most joyous when deliberately subversive.
|
1609 18 14
|
There are no city-chewed streets,/
only white and lilac blooming dogwood trees.
|
2055 20 14
|
The ethnographer turns on a recorder. The story began before but that is lost, like it never happened.
|
1454 16 15
|
When I died, she said, she was going to have me cremated and put my ashes in the cats’ litter box.
|
1423 15 15
|
I dreamt I was spinning down the coast in a convertible. It was warm, and the top was down.
|
1718 16 14
|
"The carpet's hot lava," my son cries, pointing at the ground from the sofa."Yeowch!" I say, leaping next to him.We sit together for a moment, silently contemplating our predicament."We need to get downstairs," I tell him. He nods, but does not move. He stares at the hot…
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