1947 2 1
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On the first day of autumn, in the rear courtyard of the Léger estate, Yvette Mongrain was scrubbing down the glass tables and wrought iron chairs that had been trucked in from Paris the morning before and arranged across the flagstones.
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159341
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She'd always been an odd girl, nearly raising herself. As she got breasts and hips the boys complained that she was easy to get in the backseat, but afterward the car wouldn't run, not ever, like the engine died the moment they used her willingness up. So
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133211
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Like a distant memory of past expectations
I wander through past journeys, delineations
chew on the fresh air like a discontented Wordsworth
now free, free to roam where I will..
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93840
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The bullet went past his right ear and a little star appeared, twinkling in the mirror, a small hole in its middle, before the boom of the shot filled up the bar.
He put his straight up Grey Goose martini down on the bar hard enough so th
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153321
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I knew I spoke out of turn when I asked my father's old friend Charlie Jobe what he thought would come of moving to the veterans' camp, or "Village of the Deranged", as the newspaper has since taken to calling it. That was their description after all the
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188521
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One sunny day after Christmas Eldon went ice fishing with Grandma and Grandpa at Haymarsh. He was not fishing for Ice Fish but for regular fish who swam under the ice. Craig was there too. Craig was wearing more pairs of socks than anyone. He was wearing 3…
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176611
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“They picked me up in their spaceship about noon,” Austin Grantham says to me while pulling up an apple crate to use as a stool.
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75021
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The line of the unemployed
wrapped back on itself
like an accordion pleat
and extended all the way across
a great hall
You could see the faces
of them, bluish and drawn
under the dim florescent
lighting
First in
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159511
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The pear is a bruise. Feels like desperation in the light, it looks soft and blue. She wants to touch it and doesn’t want to. How the blood gathers under the blue and the body grows tender. Swells. Slowly.
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107011
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Years later, the couple is different in some terribly profound way. Maybe they have grown old and begun to look like one another. Or maybe they have been divorced and haven't spoken in months or years except through the kids, who they spoil and use against their…
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126150
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An expanse of trees, grass, scrub, heathers, sky, space. A grey horse, the type her gran would have placed a bet on, approaches. "Don't like flies?" he asks. He holds her gaze, walks closer. Seventeen black flies crawl over the right side of his head. "What…
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125331
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“Don’t do this Jack. You are better than this.” He pleaded. My lips curled, “Maybe I am, but you’re not.” I spat. I lifted up his delicate frame and threw him back against the wall of his office. I watched as his head bounced off the decorative brick
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119111
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He licks his lips and mouths the air, salivating, unashamed of his propensity for the round, pink grapefruit, the almost egg-shaped oranges, the firm, juicy tangerines.
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125411
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They run nonstop for weeks. Between traffic stalled cars. Down forgotten subways tunnels drilled long ago in the cold earth. Past burning sugarcane fields.
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169412
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And I just want to say that my morning song is better than yours. I want you to hear it buzzing in me like an old radiator. I want you to do what you’ve done before. To press your ear against the skin and listen for the static.
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233311
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Ham
If you have never cooked a ham steak, you need not be afraid. The ham is often cut so thin that to over or undercook it is nearly impossible. The exterior reflects the centre better than any other meat; you will know when to stop.
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243311
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“I killed a man.”
“Whaaattt???” I'd been meditating on the sun. I figured he was trying to jolt me awake.
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179411
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When I was six, my father brought home a fishbowl. Look out for the inhabitants, he said. You can play Neptune in their microcosm of the sea.
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164621
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The poet paused
Pen poised in hand
A wrinkle on his brow
He’d but to rhyme the final verse
The only problem
How?
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136821
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She also castrated her cat. All by herself...with her Swiss Army Knife. And not with the blade either.
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96921
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He cut the heads off, and in doing this, their eyes came off. He placed the four discs on the windowsill next to the petrified avocado pit and Chia Pet clay shell. The eyes glittered like globs of jam.
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141211
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Route 346 is the way Pop drove to Troy long after everybody else took Route 2. Today Charlie and I drive in the opposite direction. Back then, Pop drove us to Troy on Route 346 on Sunday afternoons with the car windows…
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176711
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I hear the car door slam. Steve, about to duck daddy-duty: Just gonna take a run to the Quickway. "Rudy," I say, "go get in the car. Tell Papo I said Wait."
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360621
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When he turned to the quiet sound of her voice, he knew he'd heard her before, that she had already called out several times, and that she'd reached him somewhere in a recess of…
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69470
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Back in college I had carnal knowledge
of a woman who danced bare-breasted
and frenzied as a Bacchante.
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167140
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Lifting a pear wedge to my lips, I hesitate and dip it into my bourbon instead. I notice a tiny sphere of liquid, suspended, glistening with the flame of the candle. The sweet, subtle scent tantalizes my senses. Careless, sticky fingers bring movement.…
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249811
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One Overcoat, grey striped; One Suit, fur trimmed, red velvet; One Evening gown and jacket, cretonne; One Negligee brocade; One Costume evening gown; Seven Straw hats; Four Shirts for riding habits; Four Collars for riding habits; One Negligee, green crep
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163411
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Before the bills, before the fighting, before the need to blame something, there was a moment blown empty in the span of one doctor’s breath, a moment where bar nights and weekend benders had no meaning, a moment where the future was as blank as the bac
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261121
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“We should go again,” said Krishna.
But Iqbal didn’t reply. He sipped his tea like he hadn’t heard, but a tremor passed through his right shoulder. His left arm was bandaged, and the wrist and lower arm were in a c
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93811
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The tuna fish sandwiches were laid out the way they had always been; they were cut into triangles, with wet paper towels between them. They stayed that way over an hour, untouched, aside from a dimple the size of my cousins finger to test the softness. …
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