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Ten years ago, when I was in college, my father divorced my mother and said he wanted me to become responsible for her. That is why I fled to Italy.

Firing stopped, and Bedouins herded camels across the artillery range.

Gresham’s law. Stupid talk chases smart talk out of circulation.

The graffiti suggests the most essential story of New Haven.

A finger on the bell, a quick sprint on light feet, and then stifled laughter.

Dad was blind until six months ago, when he bumped his head in the fire.

Insomnia! There is a sickly romance to the affliction—initially.

Gotta watch them damn sorry folks he sez they leave the best stuff.

I’d wager a cicada is fond of a high note on a synthesizer.

Isn’t Nightshade sad, people said; isn’t he pathetic; isn’t he hideous.

Standing there in our small shadows, we discuss the ways of the dead.

When an old man marries a young piece of flesh, she is the ruler.

At nineteen you were six-foot-two. At ninety-one you will be two-foot-six.

He is too young even to be drinking let alone educating us.

The women wanted signs of regret, but she was straight shouldered.

Miriam slept at the ranch often, although little sleep happened there.

There’s no way to escape a storm at sea; it hits you, and you can’t hit back.

He knew deep down that only her ridiculous optimism kept them going.

Ever since she believed he was cheating, she felt erotically obsessed.

Goretti was a victim perfect for her time, an icon of Catholic sexual politics.

You could take your pick from an array of rebellions to consider.

Fearing for them, I clustered them together, then cut them off.

There is hardly a rich man in the world who has not such a friend.

“Why on earth are you taking luxury cruise passengers to Zamboanga?”

She wants something red and shiny that always works.

I arrange your five deflating basketballs under the lonely net.

Dance with you? I said after a moment. That’s your dare?

She had come to the scene where she needed to get them in bed.

I found it impossible not to imagine a radiant future for myself.

Mother had always told me that everybody loves a self-absorbed ass.