Recommended stories

Absence

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You anchor the real You make love to the true I am bound to you in consecration

Ash

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Whenever my mother’s will-to-live wavered and her hand reached out for the electric fence, my ash would whisper, “Live, live.”

The Hunter

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...I pray for the animal souls I have taken -- panther, gazelle, hyena, vulture...

December 1999

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... and you can’t balance your checkbook or divide a three-way bill in a restaurant but you can still recite all the sixteen ways of SHAUN CASSIDY TELLS: 16 WAYS TO TURN ME ON!

THE PREVIOUS ADVENTURES OF POPEYE THE SAILOR

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It's an easy thing to take out an eye.

Late at Night

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My eyes hold my mother. It's not easy being human she tells me. She always told me. Sure, but the stories are lovely. We all know that. We generate the tales, tell the tales, kiss our children. Live on in their eyes, though, don't…

Ancestry.com

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Ancestry.com The Liverpool census in 1851 lists him:Thirteen years old, Irish. Occupation: beggar. Only that. I will do more for him.I will see him in torn jacket and too-short pants singing all day of the fields, the cliffs,…

untitled

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fallen leaves, broken limbs fron wounded trees

Dream(ed) Life

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From room to room, neither closet nor drawer contained any remnant of pleasant memory.

Twine

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I thought of driving over there across town, steering with buttered hands.

Cloudstopper

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She's the one you remember when there's talk of the blow.

Migration

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She offers the girl a seat, asks her to stay for a minute, but she can’t, she just came by to say hello, and don’t you like my new raincoat?

castaway

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the epiphany at the mast at midnight is not the same at dawn

Circumstance

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In a time of drought,/ the sound of rain is sweet/ and joyful music.

Not Creative

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a poem about things exploding/burning down/scattering for miles.

Exasperation Management

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We honor fierce, quick, cunning/ thought-in-action types

April

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...he thought often of the rollicking waves, of being pulled under, of being weightless and senseless...

All-Night Cartoon Party

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'Hey, are you supposed to be from a cartoon or something?' said the Grim Reaper. I had to take a big drink before I could reply. I didn't know what to say, so I said 'Could I see your watch, please?' He looked down my dress while he thought about it.

Royal Coachman

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" trout hovered in a sun-dappled pool"

soft soap

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you were very very small, you were everso small, you were like – the tiniest creature, hopping about on one leg

The Rest Nowhere

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A screaming comes across the brain

Tremor

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I ask because she's the animal person, not me. She understands animal behavior.

The Silence of Harold

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It's been sixteen days since I spoke with another soul. I don't mind much, but I know enough about people to know most would think I'm mighty odd. Muriel, for example. She'd be pissed as all get out. …

Auden at Swarthmore

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So I went to see the wrinkled and rumpled poet, who insisted on reading from memory, stumbling through his sheaf of poems.

Picture Window

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You call your wife. “Do you see what I see?” you ask.

Disappearing Dirt

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The mulch vendor is a crook but we have no choice, not with the shortage of soil. Have to guard the stuff, put alarm wires around the garden, leave a friend in charge to spot the thieves if you go away overnight. If you…

The Way Home

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I’m in the Grand Central Station bar-- the one at the top of the stairs-- waiting for my husband to enter so I can watch him. The bar is crowded, everyone getting in that last beer before heading back to whiney children and tired spouses.

Egg

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We soft boiled the free range egg, cracked it, and were surprised to find nothing in it.

Curse at Your Smoking Gun

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// opening act: van featuring balloon featuring drugs // headliner: lubv ya babe

Why I Don't Write Sex Scenes Anymore

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I’ve had my face talked off by those types (and I’m sure you’ve met a few) who need to say and hear “special” words, and they go "unh-hunh, unh-hunh, o yeah, o yeah, unh hunh."