1456 14 9
|
“Mommy,” the voice was thin as a fledgling's. “I'm here, baby,” I said. An arm rose from the pavement and small fingers wound themselves into my…
|
1023 14 11
|
sheets, white, coarse
redolent with Clorox
|
1453 18 8
|
Overnight, I felt drunk, as if headed for hangover, but I hadn't drunk enough to cause it. What caused it? Superstitions dialed in sleep.
|
1506 17 10
|
Can you write a 250-word story without using the letter "e"?
Ruth's back is curving forwards, folding, softly caving into tomorrow.
|
1515 17 10
|
The leaves are telegrams sent from the branches to the wind, saying, “it's over stop don't send kisses stop forget me.”
|
1491 12 12
|
Your soap on the shelf in the shower
melts with my every hair wash
and I'll miss it the way I should have missed you.
|
202 20 10
|
6% of anorexics die of their disorder, most of sudden heart failure.
|
1225 15 11
|
When Lois finally found him down there, Johnny was wedged between a large rock and the trunk of an old, long since fallen, cottonwood tree. She said as she got to him, she heard his gurgling breath, fighting fiercely to stay alive. When she saw the deep, gathering, red…
|
1754 17 11
|
|
1304 14 10
|
I think he viewed Communion as an act of hygiene that allowed him to go on being fiery and self-determined.
|
1160 12 12
|
That afternoon she met me in the lobby of my hotel and we simply smiled at each other in the elevator going up to my room where we sat on the couch for about three hours and told of our lives, of being apart, for so many years, then sensing our time was nearly used up, I…
|
1050 14 11
|
They wear their bodies recklessly, these cempazuchitl,
these flowers of the dead.
|
1418 24 10
|
Clayton had a grin like the hand of a beast that stretched as long as her gravel road...
|
2082 22 7
|
The first thing she remembers is sunshine, then her own dawning, and feeling the lumps on her head and bruises on her face and pain in her heart and aloness of her soul.
|
1548 18 12
|
There's a man sitting in my room holding a jar of my ashes. That's what he claims.
|
1411 12 12
|
They'd taken so much: ivory, rubber, copper, gold. Wealth for the grabbing. No remorse.
|
1636 15 8
|
If This Were Baltimore East A spray of change in the lilies and loose rubber, she pulled close to the wall. She smiled at the trucks, her handful of loot. Hallelujah, he said, converting. West Like 4 miles of cakes, they counted…
|
1280 13 11
|
You were busy, moving, alert inconstant motion; packingbooks, clothes, paintings;deciding yes to this, no to that. I was simply tryingto settle somewhere in the space.We'd known it for years when things were in place. Now, this abrupt interruption of…
|
286 21 9
|
|
1978 15 11
|
|
1604 12 12
|
Columbus Avenue, I’m the tense union of poor city rich city/
gentrification.
|
1790 16 12
|
In all my marriage stories, I am both victim and hero.
|
2069 20 9
|
My son thinks he's French.His accent was cute at first, but it's starting to get on my nerves. If he asks for another glass of Beaujolais I'm gonna go to jail for child abuse.Yesterday, I walked upstairs to make him turn his new Jacques Brel album down and I swear it…
|
2046 15 11
|
The sky was an over-bleached sheet, stretched to the point of ripping. Everything worn but clean. He was saying he'd be happier if we lived in Canada. The sun seemed very close, like a star at the top of a Christmas tree. Maybe I could pull it down. Our baby had…
|
1693 19 11
|
|
1456 16 12
|
The P-36 used for gunnery exercises was twitchy and stubborn...
|
1698 14 10
|
. . . and the last thing you’ll smell will be new-cut pine.
|
1019 14 11
|
Dear Brandon Lee: I know that you're dead and can't respond to letters, but I've always felt a connection to you.
|
1575 19 10
|
The jail, where I stayed for 48 hours, gave me enough information to write a 180-page book, something I resisted setting out upon due to the insult of it.
|
818 16 10
|
My first winter in Massachusetts feels medieval: cold, dark, and endless.
|