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The Weight of Need

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In need of help, he bought his first self-help book at the age of twenty-nine.

Everyman's Armful

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She was, they said, everyman’s armful; Bedding down with her was most likely harmful.

A Haiku In Spirit But Not In Form On the Fine Art of Sumo

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Two titans move opposite one another

Dear Mouth

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...you vigorously screamed blasphemies at inanimate objects

Lucky

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Jane worked out of her new husband's suburban house, struggling to remember it belonged to her too. She shook off memories of years in a rented Mid-City shotgun, an old elevated dwelling that still seemed like home. It ended up with four feet of canal water…

The Two of You

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The new kids never even met you. They know the story of you. They will have it by heart by the second week and include the gruesome part in a letter home.

Chalk, Fish and Monkey

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She picked the fish out of the box leaving a pool of mucus and blood slowly congealing on the shelf and dripped it toward the kitchen table. Outside the wind lashed the tops of the poplar trees together and rain sprayed from the barn roof opposite.

Love Letters

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I saw your soul like flesh through négligée, enigma moulding treasure from okay.

Night Visitor

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The tapping of hard soles moves slowly but forcefully away from the front door and toward the kitchen. Johnny looks at his dinosaur as if its spiked tail and plates of armor will protect him. Clip clop. Clip clop. The footsteps circle the kitchen. The bac

Johnny Bruzzone: Pool Hustler

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I was a coward and didn’t want to get killed like Heimley. Heimley was a nut at high school. I saw him myself one night put his hand right through the windshield of this car he was working on, along with a monkey wrench. Sure, he was drunk, but th

Where it is Warm, in memory of Jean Craighead George

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Michael remembered when he would lay awake at night as a child and in his mind escape to the woods.

I've Been Here Before

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I’ve been here before. it wasn’t you though— it was her before you, and then she before her … before you.

consolations from Cold Mountain

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not otherwise employed, writing verse,/ line by tenuous line the substance of pulse./ ―but no one collects unemployed verse:/ self-lacerations must yield blood, not ink.

Directed by Jackson Pollock

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I don't know how to describe it, in the way that it should be.The ghosts of the founding fathersthru subway smoke and traffic light,visions of long before the Dakotasuccumbing to the myth of gravity,dead bodies stuck in water towerson the roofs of cheap hotels,counterfeit…

Hair

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I had a temperature of 105 degrees. I lost all my hair.

Poem: Admonition

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"Why, before the summer has passed You won’t remember her name. . ."

Seventy

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She was a rich widow who lived down the street.

MoonEarth Collision: A Disaster Story

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“My fellow Americans,” says his boss, leader of the free world. “The orbit of the moon has been disturbed. No longer revolving around the earth, the moon now hurtles toward the earth. Impact is expected within days.

Honeybee

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Forgetting her inhibitions, she dove for him.

Science Fiction

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This is the story of the metastasis of the national security state.

Twister

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“You know this is your death car.”

One Star

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...somehow that light has found me.

the waitress

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she smiled

Father's Day

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“What the hell, bitch?” The words rolled out of my aching jaw. I twisted my legs around, kicking Lila out of the bed. She screamed, crashing to the floor. All I heard was barking. I threw a pillow at her.

Jukebox Genesis

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Once something starts, there is no telling where it will go.

A headline for Amy Hempel

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I shall go with german rules of capitalization in titles today.

Danse Macabre

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Between the commercials, the local news is rampant with fusillade of bullets going raving mad, driven by some Machiavellian brainfuck, or bombshells smiling down with angels in black; emoticons of solid metal and pride. But you would put your faith in…

Voyeur

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He and she are fucking while I watch. She's moaning deep desire and he's pounding flesh into flesh. I'm fully clothed, eyes attune to their fornication, studying. He comes inside of her; their bodies stiffen and then wriggle against one another. …

Resident

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You will know the country for fences, for feces, for cows, or, You will know the country for the smell of hay and manure blowing over the hills to you.

Night Of The Ghouls

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The following is a true story. Though it happened 35 years ago, it happened last night too. Everyday a new convert is welcome, a new tapestry begun. A new hunger is born.