My father picked up Martin and me for a visit once every couple weeks, on a Sunday after church. Martin was at swim practice, so today I would be with him alone. Any hope of my parents getting back together had diminished
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On the grass under the trees, a mumbling woman scatters seed for pigeons—whole bags of it— which makes them lazy, trusting, unafraid. She sprinkles her feed, not noticing a squirrel’s torn-off tail—mistaking for a root the skeletal pinion rolled in dirt. She
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The school bus chugging away Leaves a cloud of exhaust And a back window of kids Sticking out tongues, or, For braver ones, skinny butts Pressed against cold glass. He watches from the corner Smoking a Camel, hacking blood Into a handkerchief,
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It really did start off as a school project, but I haven’t been in school for over a decade. I wanted to see how people treat you if they think you’re a mother, a young, single mother. And yes, I wanted to
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“It was supposed to be a radioactive sneeze,” my wife said. “A painless moment before the Milky Way wiped us off their sleeve.” Her flair for speaking in rhyme within profound statements, such as a euphemism for WWIII being a metaphor about
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When you’re fifteen you can take off your clothes and stand in front of a boy. You do it because he looks like a famous person. You do it because he has the same name as someone you’ll love in twenty years.
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SHE WHISPERS TO THE VULTURES / COLIN DODD STAINED / KELLY WEBER MISS / KAMAL E. KIMBALL THE PAINTING / ROBERT HALLECK ANNABELLE / R. E HENGSTERMAN A PHOENIX / ALICIA ROBINSON THE DEAD DOG IN THE FIELD / NICOLE MASON
I like to tell it like it happened in July so there can be implications of watermelons, fireworks. In December, though, the blood on the house and snow are peony blooms in red and white. But if it’s in July, there can
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The morning is silver with birdsong. Clapboard chapel sides thunk down in the grass as nude pews shudder. The priest is sick. His coughing will curse both houses. The rings will roll off the knuckles that don’t exist. Crinoline waits, a virgin in the dress shop, untouched
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It is hot – so hot. The sort of heat that seeps through your clothes to your skin, drips down your scalp, and makes you want to scratch, an itch that won’t stop. I wipe the back of my hand on my
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