Tigers stood frozen on pedestals across the city, right paws outstretched, poised to shake hands. A hundred appeared overnight gracing the lawns of cafes, clinics, banks. They were cool to touch, of many colors and designs. Nobody determined their origin or materials.
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i. She told me to listen to the silence; count its beats, she said. My eyes slipped closed but all I could hear were her chandelier earrings swishing and her sticky fingers turning the page of ave maria. Hear the music. Feel
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She always thought of the most important things in threes. Even when she was a small child, it was a number that made sense to her. Mother, father, child. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. The people who loved her first came to her in
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Friend of the profligate, the drowsy, the distractable, saying you’re pretty isn’t the same as saying I’d want to listen to you complain that every conversation with me feels like a vocabulary test. You woke up hoping that today is the day
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When I die I’ll go to Hell, Miss Hooker says, my Sunday School teacher, because I sin too much and even a little’s not good. But it can’t be all my fault because Adam and Eve started it all, crossing God by
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“Ya wear me out,” he said with a satisfied sigh, rolling off her body toward the open window. The breeze blowing in from Darwin Harbor cooled their sweat-drenched bodies. “Don’t you fall sleep, jackeroo!” She gave him a shove. “You promised we’d
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Dawn rain enamels the weeds that choke my perennial garden. Phoebes and nuthatches deploy in search of the ripest insects. I want to tell them how I dreamt the stars fell out of their sockets and sizzled in the birdbath, but responsible
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I am signing the visas. All other duties are hereby deferred: tracking Russian troop movements, the shift of German divisions, British naval traffic spanning the Baltic Sea. My bosses can wait. I am busy signing the visas for Solly Ganor and Jacob
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Captain America showed up To Dave and Tiffany’s wedding. An ‘A’ on his forehead, Star on his shield, red boots and gloves. At first I thought it must be fancy dress But his smile betrayed the truth: His patriotic teeth. He settled
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Walking past steep porches, you sometimes whistle and a cat’s face appears beneath the bushes like a four-leaf clover. Squat, extend your hand, pointing your index finger. Stay still, look in his eyes. This is the lesson I have to give as
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