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I looked out at the busy world, and I saw nothing but its ugly bones.

All these barns with their busted spidery limbs strewn over the lupine.

He left the Meijer in the dark of the April evening and drove to the Embassy.

When his father was out cold he tied him up, roping his arms to his sides.

The author reads her story, a finalist in the Winter 2013 Story Contest.

At first my dad was optimistic that he could be a one-armed farmer.

“Bo? I need you to be a big boy now,” she said. “Are you ready?"

The bank had stated that emphatically. They had to sell and sell now. It was as if Hank had aged twice as fast, and he couldn’t stand that truth.

When we’re all together like this it feels like hope is a possibility.

I fell asleep wondering to whom the tree might have been writing.

Here’s a first, he said, some nutbag wants to dig the grave himself.

I opened my pocketknife, grabbed his hair in a fistful, and cut.

“And if you ever tell anybody what I’m about to tell you, I’ll deny it.”

“I’m looking for a Mr. Miller,” he said. “I was told I might find him here.”

Up north people hunt bears using gummy bears as bait.

Ed McClanahan

Nina sang “Tell Me More and More and Then Some” on the Caddy’s radio.

We ate and then made love, the windows open to deafening twilight.

I returned to Vietnam with a tape recorder to collect ca dao.

When and why had I begun to think about Ingrid Stoltz? She was a bitch.

Somehow, Captain Brown made himself respected in Cranford.

Lindy knew what happens in the dark behind shut doors: girls tell stories.

I stepped down painfully on my cracked ankle and nearly fell.

“Leaving for war, Hayes wept. He didn’t just cry; he wept...”

People only see that side of him. He is still a boy, learning to be a man.

I wanted to forget my parents’ slow dying together in Ohio.

I would chase it to the shores of the lake where the killer waited.

The coyotes are making a kill. Their voices rise through the darkness.

Getting over being drunk makes you wonder why the hell you did that.