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Secondhand: Four Inscriptions

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To whoever reads this next--Henry James makes my head hurt.

This Is What Happens to the World in 10 Seconds

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1. Everyone disappears.2. Stars map themselves.3. The moon fills her bathtub over and over. You can't watch it for too long or you go mad, shouting, "Just get in, get in!"4. The ghosts of certain broken poets stand under apple trees and lean their hands on the…

Cure

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It's as if there are little men inside her head, wielding hammers.

Colony

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“It won’t work,” I say..

the note read

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Orchids, and irises. Tulips, and a sunflower too.

Human Frailty

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Conceptio culpa Nasci pena Labor vita Necesse mori

The Bitterness of Butterfly Wings

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So I licked the Anise from my fingers.

Wet funeral

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I know now, how she moves without verbs after you crushed her into the river.

I Happen To Think I Have A Great Face, Actually

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For those of you with a position cemented firmly to the contrary, I happen to think I have a great face, actually. My face, maybe I talk about my body a lot, but my face is pretty great, really it is.

Naming the Beauties

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the signature of God/ consigning everything/ to the saturating energies of time.

In the Air a Shining Heart

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In the air a shining heart, wet lungs releasing and releasing, your sweet milk head, your pulsating skin. Only an inch separates us. A shimmer of hot air trembles like boiling water above the highway. There are seeds floating in the sky. These things will become other…

If Pigs Could Fly

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One day we turn a corner, and two fat little doggies spot us and come running up. Oh, they are so glad to see us!

SHE HAS HER REASONS

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It is a well-known fact that my wife sleeps around. There. I said it and now everyone knows that I too know about my wife. Let me just tell you this one thing; she has her reasons. You ask me how I know that she has her reasons, but who would know better than…

Unwanted Stories: A Public Service Advisory

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Unfinished, deeply flawed stories require the kind of handling you see in movies where a Virus That Will Doom Mankind is disposed of by scientists in hazmat suits.

Restland,

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He died a printer finding late/ after so much selling himself selling/ a craft that pleased and paid enough

The Beauties Abandon You

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The skin will stay but you won’t see it,/ camouflaged by creases, tags, and curious/ deposits of renegade fat and pigment.

A Gardener in February Thinks About June

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I want to be that daring gardener who ploughs up her front yard -- to the horror of the Neighborhood Association.

The Graduate

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A sweet fog rises to the rafters. Inhale.

Dorothy's Parker House Rolls: A Jazz Age Recipe

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INGREDIENTS --A messy divorce. --A late spring night in Boston. DIRECTIONS 1. First, let's agree to call them "Pahkah House Rolls," for the Pahkah House is a luxury Boston hotel. (We'll be returning to New York on the morning train.)

The Bird

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We lived on the edge of a tiny Iowa town, and picked corn fields were steps away.

Resurrection

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...He steps back from the abyss, inner eye envisioning the ink sip of a fountain pen, the hard, hot brain frenzy that sends phrases marching toward another bridge between oblivion and art.

See Jane

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Jane watched her mother remove her wedding ring with butter.

Jean-Michel Basquiat Invaded My Dreams

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"the rum tasted of hibiscus blossoms"

January 1980: Avenue A and St. Mark’s Place, East Village

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In the St. Mark's Bar and Grill romance is a speedy thing, a blurred whir of grope, kiss, connect. The tricky thing is timing: to leave in time for the boozy love of the hour to carry through to full, naked contact. Some succeed of course. Others overstay, hang past the…

Cheerful but Awful

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With such a world/ one must invent a heaven

Love

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Trent’s had many phases: Madonna, Bette, leather, water sports, rollerblading, haiku, chicken queen, rice queen, muscle queen, daddy. But religion? This is new.

All there is

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You need buttered broths and to copy old writings by hand by very poor light.

Ilonka's Hagaddah

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So then we had to worry about the Russian soldiers. When they heard we were Jewish, they said “How come the Germans didn’t kill all of you?”

My VaJayJay, The Homing Pigeon

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"The problem is, sometimes my pigeon wants to fly somewhere new- to the beach or south for winter. Other times, my pigeon wants to steal someone else’s lunch or picnic with a stranger’s leftovers. Often, my pigeon wants a good show and some freedom, to be

Something Other Than the Truth

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“I’m going home,” I answered, but the word home seemed inappropriate. I hadn’t told the truth and felt something, not guilt as guilt was far too strong, but still I felt something that moved me enough to amend my answer: “I’m going to the place where I gr