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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“How do I look?” “You look fine, honey.” “Is it fine or beautiful?” “You look like a mom,” he said. “Are you sure?” “Yes. I’m sure.” Lillian Ratcliff fluttered about the nursery as if a butterfly had taken possession of her body.
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Across the old woman’s ceiling, the stain spreads its puckered areola, water hooping frayed ripples in the plaster where something broke, leaked in the apartment upstairs, where naked lights shine cold-clear as through windows cobalted with Madonna and child. This godforsaken place.
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It rained that day. His woman was fucking phantoms in the shadows. Doorways opened into empty space five stories up. He was a ghost among real animals. His lover was rooting for the hyenas. She could barely see him. He embarrassed the
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The town was small. The museum was small, free, and uncrowded. He looked at the painting with the artist’s name faded to nothing. It stayed with him all that summer and the years that followed. A smiling girl with a sleeping dog.
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