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Psychological Profile for "Joe"

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He boasts of administering regular beatings to his wife and claims that she enjoyed it.

Gambit

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and like the want of weather, we walk away or come close

Wrong Number

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He tilted his head at his monitor and exhaled “No.” Minutes later, he tilted his head the other way and more sharply exclaimed “No!” Then he began over the next quarter hour simply to stare at the data stream before him, which left him speechless.

The Untimely Death of the Old Forgotten Man

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I watched haunted as my pearl tooth circled the rotten porcelain sink. I could feel my hair thinning and my pale skin suddenly felt too loose.

Creamy, Dreamy, Coppertone Cologne

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and live for that moment

Double Vision

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To conceive of them separated was unthinkable to every wet-eyed soul at the burial.

.38

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His name was Gino. I’ll leave out the last name, not that I think it matters anymore. He came into my dad’s gas station on the near North side of Chicago to have work done on his fancy car. I was still a teenager. I accidentally opened the glove compartme

Savings Bonds

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"May I help you?" She was beautiful.

Taking a Job

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Teaching never occurred to me in college. I took workshops and wrote often. Friends and classmates, meanwhile, switched from studio majors to Art Education, or from English to Certification. Not me. Teaching high-schoolers would be all wrong. Briefly, I…

Fix

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I’m sorry. We couldn’t fix the country and left her a bigger mess than we found her Oil leaking from her shores earthquake batter all over her skin We couldn’t fix her, and we’re sorry You’ll find her wreck in tatters at the bus st

In Dubai III

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The boy in the elevator with round glasses, / who carried a newly-purchased broom, / was tall and burdened with clothes

Octopus

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Sometimes I think there's an octopus in my stomach. In the mornings it stretches and droops its lazy head to one side — It suctions it's tentacles to the walls of my belly and pulls them together forcing me To gag, and vomit what we didn't digest of the…

Sand Dollars

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“Life is on life’s terms,” she told me once. Her arm, wrapped in clear cellophane, was freshly adorned with a green-pigmented sand-dollar: a living shell.

Finger Lost Finger Found

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Little Roy Farrell'd taken a bite of his fourth grade teacher's ear as she bent close to help him sound out the word “grace.” Doc Felter had sewn most of teacher's ear back on, but by seventh grade Roy still couldn't read and never understood that he'd in

Model Home

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In the living room of a model home, Mr. Jorgensen lived. He was a mannequin. He spent his days in display windows. He spent his commutes displaying the latest model cars.

Ukai

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If it weren't for the different lengths of dock, I would think the river just goes past me. Maybe it does, and the banks move too. Orderly where the clouds are random. I have cormorants, passengers, and salmon. They catch each other. They make my crew money. When did my…

When The Sun Goes Down

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Though his heart aches his melody seems to flow It creeps into the dreams of all in slumber in the valley below

34

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The space they are in is years long.

The Impending Fall Of Space Junk

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The world is always changing, even if it's in several eras at once.

My Smelly Valentine

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He asked me if I was going to buy Valentine's for the office this year, and I shook my head. We were in the dollar store, February 13, and I could get a box of twenty kids' Valentines with last year's favourite cartoon…

Paddy Wagon

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So many are so sick.

Forever and a Day

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Just an abnormal visit to the post office.

Squishy

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Martin named it “Squishy” for two reasons. The first reason was because it was the noise it made when it came out of the hole in his basement. The second is because it’s what it did to Grandfather...

Groceries

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Your son is six feet tall in the sixth grade. By his sophomore year of high school, he outweighs you by a hundred pounds. He's been offered four football scholarships and one for a sport he's never played. Every morning his mother, your ex ex-wife, makes his breakfast of a…

Calenture

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CALENTURE The horizon is marked with the still sculptures of dead gulls; A young man floats off slowly on the…

Pigs Fly

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You are rounded just the way the mountain is, out the window. The sun sets on both of you now. Three of you, I should say: the mountain, and you, and little Frank, who is currently batting my ear because he doesn't want to be named Frank but it's for your dead father,…

Life at the Red Diaper Baby Factory

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Von Meckel had us all go out and paint this huge red square around the Red Diaper Baby factory. Then he held a big naming rally, at noon, during our lunch break. We weren’t allowed to eat our sandwiches. There was all this pomp and circumstance. We were

Palinode for a Love That Failed

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Palinode: A poem written to retract something said in a prior poem.

Breaking Eyes

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-No, just drugged, I remind myself. The hallucinations are more real, more accurate than before. While the dreams get more nightmarish, the hallucinations get more nostalgic. I prefer the nightmares. No one knows if this treatment will work, but what bett

"Not like a duck"

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with its head cut off