170 21 15
|
I've decided I'm here to be absurd.
|
1862714
|
At some point, my lottery number/
was in the mid 300s. I was safe/
for whatever reason. No need/
to burn my draft card.
|
1311813
|
I have one advantage, though:
I am a woman, not a fool.
|
1062013
|
The only thing I have left of my maternal grandfather is a small hand-held mirror made of ivory.It sits in the upstairs bedroom dresser drawer …
|
1191613
|
A woman with fallen breasts is attempting to hang her laundry on a string. Two tall men mount horses and ride them into the meadow. A squad of children wrap themselves around a playground.
|
1331512
|
“Sugar Pies, what can I bring y'all to drink tonight?” was the way Babette (née Mary Jones) always addressed the balcony tables full of men on those after payday nights at Sticket Inn. We loved it when she bent over the table with that scoop-necked T-Shirt…
|
1441312
|
You slid out of me, ectoplasm,
and I let you.
|
1381411
|
you cannot simply burn the past
and expect it to stay burned forever
|
1001311
|
|
1361711
|
...when they entered eager lungs hungry from deep and sweaty love
|
1141211
|
|
1241310
|
|
1311210
|
|
178189
|
|
110109
|
It wasn't the same as taking a course with Ginsberg. Everyone knew Ginsberg. Nick Cave, too, everyone knew him. Waiting lists were full months in advance for those classes, everyone sent in resumes and writing samples, praying, begging to be included. Lish was just an…
|
116109
|
I offer you a peanut butter sandwich full of unconditional love
and you say I'm being controlling, so I let you eat cake, eat cake.
|
116108
|
"You've got white privilege and hot privilege," a Latina friend
told me in 2015 when we shared
the same taste
in dollar store blue lipstick.
|
108167
|
|
81137
|
...swallowed like a radiant yolk by an epicurean barracuda.
|
9667
|
I don't know where to start. We're gaining flight. Did you seeanybody we know? The trees are always a concern. I don't thinkI know how to stop this thing from crashing into parked cars,that is if I live. You can say it was all on a stupid dare. They don't have to know…
|
9397
|
Marilee set the table for four. She had opened their doors and called. Now she listened to the familiar sounds nibble with a yawn at the day beginning.The taps were running, footsteps hurrying — it was the rush hour. Marilee knew. She didn't join in the children's…
|
9187
|
After my failed marriage, I quit my boring-assed insurance sales job and decided to make a big change.Based on a Chicago Tribune article that appeared in my hometown, Jackson, newspaper, things up in Chi-Town looked promising. Plenty of jobs. Maybe find friendly women up…
|
125126
|
We stopped to ask directions but there were none. The air was thick with souls which could not stop.
|
10666
|
I'll still want the blinds open
and the lights on,
to see the papier-mache of our flesh
fighting death away to the century mark,
even if you only want to live until
a ripe eighty-two.
|
11786
|
My hair has gone from blonde to grey; some more character lines have had their say on my face (though I wouldn't change the characters who made them); I still tend to the cerebral, but enjoy a raucous laugh; I have amended only some of my ways; I have loved deeply, more…
|
111105
|
Sitting in the SUV awaiting the trooper behind us I felt a warning tingle.
|
9666
|
state a shambles, mountains and rivers endure./meanwhile, the city hides amidst spring's thick growth . . .
|
7376
|
Every year I have a birthday, and every year
another of my friends succumbs to cancer or suicide.
That's
a shitty gift. That is devoutly not to be wished.
|
11875
|
Mom would dig through one of her music boxes to pick out Saturday morning's cleaning jams. Tattered, battered Payless shoeboxes with lids ripped to shit, filled to capacity with piles of cassettes; greatest hits albums, mostly, or Time Life compilations of mid-to-late…
|
8566
|
He said hopping trains don't get you out the pot, it only gets you to the other side. But whatever soup you're swimming in, you'll still be swimming in it.
|
