A young man remains in the room after I dismiss class. I dread having to counsel him on homesickness or a girl who shot him down because he thinks I’m emotionally available because my eyes watered when I discussed Jocasta’s suicide. I
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I pulled the kettle from the stove before it boiled to a whistle, and I lurched down to the basement as silently as my creaking bones would allow. That is where my flowers slept, waiting for me. After all, is it not
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The question the emu had for the pig was, “Why headless?” “It’s just the sort of thing he does.” The pig’s corkscrew tail did not twitch as he explained, fixed as it was to his plaster haunches. “It’s his vision, if you will.”
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Joe and Audrey reached 57 Oracle Road. A skeletal fist punched through the center of the teardrop-shaped gate, its index finger curling upwards. A jack-o’-lantern filled with orange and black sweets hung from the finger. Above it, a cardboard sign read: Help
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Polar bears like to go dancing in the shallowest bend of the Biekenfau River. They splash gaily in the rocks. They wave colored flags on wooden sticks. They wear coral tutus and bang on tambourines. The bears come to dance at night
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You were baking shrimp. It was evening in Brooklyn in late October. Yellow leaves were falling off of trees and smacking the bay window. Your mother had just died. Pete was gone, too; had been gone. The oven dinged. You checked your
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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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