1774 17 14
|
He was a liability. I knew I had to ditch him.
|
1730 11 10
|
44 miles out
the gauntlet of Red River pines
cast shadows pointing north.
|
2338 13 11
|
i was jus countin' your heartbeats, Emmie
and you know what?
i think they's the same as mine!
|
2375 5 6
|
Being a grandparent is most joyous when deliberately subversive.
|
2055 18 14
|
There are no city-chewed streets,/
only white and lilac blooming dogwood trees.
|
4264 20 14
|
The ethnographer turns on a recorder. The story began before but that is lost, like it never happened.
|
2006 16 15
|
When I died, she said, she was going to have me cremated and put my ashes in the cats’ litter box.
|
1912 15 15
|
I dreamt I was spinning down the coast in a convertible. It was warm, and the top was down.
|
3645 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…
|
1797 20 15
|
Falling Water almost fell./
12 million dollars later//
it will splay itself a little longer
|
836 15 12
|
"Tell me more about your volcano obsession," he said.
I told him about Pompeii. About the city frozen in time. And about the casts of people frozen in stances of eternal abject horror by a disaster they had no chance of avoiding, a disaster
|
4650 22 12
|
When I was sixteen, my dad’s new wife and her daughter, Mary Ann, moved in, so I had to get out. I found a burned-out one story place on Corey Road near the gas plant. When it wasn’t raining, you could see right up through the roof to the stars.
|
2066 17 15
|
There he was. Minnesota Fats, short and pudgy, jowly and blond-haired.
|
2039 22 14
|
The night we crossed the Madres my father stuffed his Stetson full of cash.
|
2263 23 12
|
You, the correct Other, the one I am looking for, you have exacting standards concerning where things must go.
|
2713 32 14
|
I knew I was on the wrong bus, but jumping off was a death sentence. I was afraid, but by then I was used to that.
|
2902 17 11
|
She is cutting his hair. The wind is in her curls. She rises and falls like a sleeping animal. He has removed his shirt. There is a towel around his neck, the smell of spice and banana, the scent of vacations. You are reminded of the time in the beach house in Florida…
|
2233 15 12
|
The man had come up behind me and locked my arms backwards. I could feel his cock or gun against my low back. He told me if I moved he'd hurt me and he said did I know what that meant? I did know, however I was watching from…
|
1777 23 14
|
She'd have to be careful, but couldn't you just see it?
|
1592 21 15
|
A small poem about incipient insanity
|
1804 21 14
|
Walking to class, Paula routinely fishes around in her purse to be sure the condom she thinks of as a close friend, even naming it Rhonda, is in there to help her avoid a pregnancy yet, even so, Paula admits that sometimes she daydreams in that boring economics class,…
|
2167 30 13
|
I had felt suddenly lighter and next thing I knew I was watching Leonard Tucker and Sister William from somewhere near the ceiling. I saw myself, too, at my desk, holding my songbook out in front of me like everyone else.
|
2389 12 12
|
r luv iz gud enuf 4 a tat2
|
2643 29 15
|
What I wanted was long-in-the-sheets sex...
|
1766 16 13
|
There is no hate in his eyes...
|
2037 16 15
|
....the first/
in a long history of indignities.
|
2850 13 12
|
What's missing from their bodies is nothing compared to what's missing in their heads. One man in particular, now almost 80. Wakes to the smell of napalm, cigarette smoke, gasoline. Is he still feverish? Will the fungus rot his foot? But he remembers he
|
3098 15 6
|
I had told myself that I would not cry. That I would hold on to my anger so tightly, there would be no space for pity.
|
1914 29 14
|
You say boxer briefs, I say pillbox hats
|
2053 18 15
|
Together / they peeled and fed each other pink fruit, / ordered expensive pink beef, went on / vacations and viewed pink sunsets / on paradise beaches.
|