Month: September 2024
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Tableaux Vivant
He grabs her arm when they leave the curb. Says crossing Highway 1 is dicey. “Art Festival time.” She knows that. She knows aficionados clog the neighborhood en route to the amphitheater. She knows that’s where they mold people into famous paintings. “Living pictures,” they call it. Isn’t the opposite true? she wonders.
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Headway
In the 40’s it took 10 minutes for men in coats to drill into housewives’ human bone like needles through thick wool …
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Our Crimsoned Future
Blood on the tissue. Stomach tumbling to hard tile, anchored to expiration…
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Flying Solo
She pushed a red pin through Sandakan. Once, they had both dreamed of seeing orangutans in the wild. She had made it happen. She had stood on fertile ground and watched them feast and frolic inside a breathing jungle. When it was time to leave, she had flown over palm oil plantations encircling the rainforest,…
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Regifting
“I know he’s not real.” She nodded softly, guided two slumping shoulders down the hall and from under a frumpy bed produced a worn shoebox. His velvet hands removed wrinkled envelopes, and together they visited the time before…
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Yard Sale Locket
The clasp clicked shut, two halves of precious metal meeting into an oval…
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At the Break Line
Salty spray smacks both bony knees. Shrieking in delight, four-year-old me retreats to my smiling dad, churning foam and sand as I muscle through. From shore, mom watches, perfect-posture regal. A pale hand shades her roving eyes…
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Deconstructing Mom
They would start in the den Small. Organized. Dad had said to take anything they might use…