Shelley washes up once or twice a yearon the beach at the end of my street.And I still feel lucky to find him—my dear Bysshe,all tangled in burgundy seaweed on the sloping shore.And not the real one, mind you, not the one they draggedrotten from the Italian surf, ten days dead, bloated, . . .
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The baby in the crib is sleeping. Instead of tiptoeing out of the room, the mother tiptoes in, looks long at the infant, then moves quietly across the carpet to the dresser against the far wall. Slowly she pulls open one of the drawers, pauses, looks again at the baby, and then . . .
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Inside was an older Asian man of medium height and build. His head was shaved to a salt-and-pepper stubble. Square, silver-rimmed glasses perched on his gentle-looking face. He wore a white tank-top undershirt and a dish towel thrown over one shoulder. The man was busy cleaning up after cooking what smelled like . . .
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As a girl I pictured death the wayI pictured sex, transporting and light on details. Except he should bemounted. Mustachioed and dashing. Now, I hear about a woman—an acquaintance, my age— on a shaded path I also walk, whose heartquit just before the lime-kiln turnoff,—from “Footpad,” Volume 61, Issue 1 (Spring 2020) . . .
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What did you want to be when you were young?A writer and artist. What inspired you to create these pieces?Unfriend Me Now is a single-piece video installation, but there are lots of individual clowns in it. MR ‘s Summer 2019 issue includes stills from that piece. It’s about the fighting on Facebook around the election . . .
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Edna St.Vincent Millay terminated two pregnancies. The miscarriage she induced in 1922 in England is well documented because Millay confided in multiple people; even her printed letters contain veiled references. An earlier procedure, occuring in the late fall of 1920 in Greenwich Village, seems to be recorded only by biographer Nancy Milford. . . .
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The old couch cushion tipped you toward him;hunched and skeletal, he didn’t make a dent.See how that could feel to him like pressure?(His therapist, gently.) But (her quick glance,his nod, negotiations with the god)—From “The Underworld Also Swallows Sons,” Volume 61, Issue 1 (Spring 2020) Tell us about one of the first . . .
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I love my nonno very much. That’s Italian for “grandpa.” I love Italian too. One of my two languages that, for reasons beyond my control, is my only language: the one, the survivor. Anyway, I love Italian. And I’m getting to know it, and to know it I write it: I carefully . . .
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Natasha — my name, which is not from my only language, the one, the survivor, is also not from the other, the aborted, the rejected— becomes N-A-T-A-S-H-A. Hell to write, especially because of that “SH” that to me sounds like it should be “SCI.” But I’ve accepted things as they are: for . . .
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Would you like a cigarette? I’d prefer Talking Mule, 1979 Burgundy. Texture and hie of Bethlehem rust. Notes of must, slate, and pre-coital rouge when tongued to the roof of the mouth. Bold finish, lingering up to seventeen seconds, diminishing to uvular frog. 3.5 stars.— from “Police Interrogation of Food Critic B.W. . . .
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