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Looley Wants to See his Nose

Looley Wants to See his Nose

Not in the mirror. Not in between his uncle’s years-ago fingers. Not running all over town like Gogol. Just something he could hold in his hands for once in his life. He tried last month to see his heart. After so many years, he wanted to see the actual scars on it,...

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Stepmother, Not Mother, Mother

Stepmother, Not Mother, Mother

Stepmother locks Daughter in the basement, chain keeping her prisoner to the furnace. Daughter tries to reach the window where Mother might be, watching, waiting for a kiss. Mother is there until she isn’t. Until Stepmother pulls them apart. Until the policeman takes...

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School Days

School Days

They left the couch, a show about child prodigies gone insane in their twenties, and in her room he pulled loose her knotted drawstrings. Outside, snow. Frost clinging to power lines like cake piping, a blizzard fooling everyone and, for once, lingering. She breathed...

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When I Say Grief

When I Say Grief

after Meredith Martinez My husband left me in February. He left with my love in his hands, and I walked to the pharmacy for a carton of eggs. The eggs were carried home in my dirty tote bag like a promise kept. I did not swing them, jerk them, or threaten to jostle...

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This is the spot where –

This is the spot where –

The moonlight-sequinned sea says There’s something I want to tell you. I walk on, pretending not to hear, fling a pebble at her face, then another, as far as they’ll go. The sea says, Listen to me, please. I want to tell her, Shut your waves up, shut your waves up and...

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Korean History

Korean History

My lover says that they’ll give me 380 words before saying goodbye forever, and it’s380 words because she’s going to be dragged back North across the border and I’ll have to beseparated to the South; she checks her watch and tells me that I have 333 words left, so I...

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At the Clown’s Birthday Party

At the Clown’s Birthday Party

After cake and ice cream, the guests, in their painted smiles and polka dot attire, settle in to watch the man they’ve hired to entertain them.  An actuary analyst!  So much better, already, than last year’s accountant or the year-before-that’s linguistics scholar. ...

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Mausoleum of Gloaming

Mausoleum of Gloaming

Crypt 1: Broomstick Skirts In robes of shell pink sunset over woodland hills, girls float the river to dance on hollow logs. Their gossamer gowns, devoured by fungus, release spores in the wind. In broomstick skirts, my sisters float skyward with petals on water. Soft...

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What My Hands Remember

What My Hands Remember

The vibration of the harvest gold phone that hung from our kitchen wall the last Sunday you called. Mom’s fingernails digging into my palm as she yanked the receiver and slammed it in the cradle. The deep divots imprinted on the back of my thighs from the plastic seat...

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Fastball

Fastball

Thinking about how she flung a softball right into my dad’s eye. How with her he was like helluva pitch, girl. How he said she could split the light with her fastball. How he said man, it's too bad you can’t play real baseball with an arm like that, too bad softball...

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Departures

Departures

A plane ploughs through the clouds as she scrubs and cleans the plugholes in the washbasins and the kitchen sink and the laundry and another plane ploughs when she mops the floors and washes the benches and polishes the windows and another plane ploughs when she...

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