1620 20 13
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You died from a bad heart.
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42731411
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We were in her boyfriend’s room in the middle of the night. I was seated on the bed, and she was on the carpet poking holes in his condoms. We were doing it in the dark, to prepare for any contingency. The room smelled like old laundry and body spray.
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221798
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“I’ve been standing across the street for fifteen minutes. I was walking by and saw you weren’t moving. So I watched—you didn’t move at all.”
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1658189
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She'd sit out on the back deck and dig into the skin around her toenails with a paring knife until it bled. He'd listen to a single aria of Opera's Greatest Hits, number 10, until the cusp of some feeling, either despair or rage, would build and fade. Then he'd start…
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16351315
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We wonder if this is how we tangled in our mother's womb: hands to feet to heart.
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15891813
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—Was it true, what you wrote in that poem?
—Pretty true.
—What do you mean “pretty true”? Was it true or wasn’t it?
—It was as close as you get to truth in poems.
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15912912
|
Night fell and the photographer slept, one hand between Prue's legs.
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6712259
|
The stone thrower lives in a glass house with his glass family. His neighbors often stop in front of his home and stare at the flesh and blood man as he goes about the business of living with his glass wife and glass child, their glass furniture and glass lives.Every…
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16752013
|
A tiny story, 55 words, just enough to fit on a . . .
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13012013
|
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12841314
|
1.As fast as that I wake to astonishing desire. I'd met you at my parents' house just the weekend before but for them (them the drained students trying to relax, refill before their afternoon sessions) you are the stranger in the room,…
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12441814
|
When I got home from work I parked my briefcase in the hall, acknowledged our dog and immediately went into the kitchen where wife, Sherry, was cooking supper. Without turning around at the sink, she said her usual, How was your day? I said, Fine, and yours? She turned…
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10581513
|
I asked the hospice nurse about maggots.
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173663
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For some, a vertical pattern will evoke prison bars, for others, product bar codes.
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19482413
|
She was still alive when I started to write the story of her life, called Lucy's Story, about her recovery from catnip, but it was not the real story. In the fake story, she took the subway to A.A.
|
1695114
|
After we have sex I slip cash into your purse, just a few bucks, without you knowing. You're not a whore, but I'd like to buy you lunch sometime without having to be there.
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7671511
|
When the compost thaws the past oozes out into the present....
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16031613
|
Write a poem in which your father is a dog and you are his leash.
|
13321714
|
It shouldn’t take that long to count/
to six but when the six are cats, arithmetic/
assumes Heisenbergian properties/
as the objects counted defy the count.
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11012512
|
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14542212
|
The drinking will continue/
until morale improves
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11411613
|
Our beautiful currencies and stamps/
disappear into the digital vortex/
of accelerated appetites.
|
13541310
|
Uncounted hens and piglets/
die at my demand. The killing floor//
runs red for me. I am/
monstrous to creatures small and great,
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24901914
|
My heart hurts as I miss you here./This was your intention, I know./
And nor is my reaction unique.
|
16611611
|
In this episode the children in the classroom will all wear boxes over their heads and will search the room with their hands. Their hands will be hands that have been reconnected. Their hands will wear seams as sleeves and curse in red. The hands that…
|
16822711
|
As soon as she left, I sat down at the computer. Booted up. Read my e-mail, then looked at pictures of bare-naked ladies.
|
15831713
|
|
26691112
|
I combed the ocean for my minnows while Hattie's giraffes multiplied like spider plants, all yellow and brown on the dry yellow savanna, propelled by their gauche necks, awkward in their bodies, bodies rooted to the feet of the humming planet.
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17791711
|
When the whistle drops, do not take any guff.
|
12841513
|
I staggered away in the storm
tears frozen to my cheeks.
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