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“I can’t believe she’s drinking,” she said. “I just can’t believe it.”

Let him search, Tricia thought, who knew what he might discover.

Not all his children love themselves. Look at little Adrienne.

She only eats condiments, pickles, slices of sharp cheddar.

What will we do without exile, and a long night that stares at the water?

I never felt heart stop or skin burn, just the first split second of sound.

I feel them slice me open and tug, then I smell my own innards burning.

Your words will strike her heart like Saint Teresa’s flaming arrow.

God was surrounding the chair, leaves flourishing from a sickly tree.

My first true love was Underwood, my mother’s typewriter.

I will tell you about the sick. They are ruthless, they are like Attila.

I will tell you about the sick. They are ruthless, they are like Attila.

It has come to this—my daughter is now assaulting other children.

If you hear your name again just say, Here I am. Maybe it’s the Lord.

The draft of ten handwritten pages would have to be cut back to five.

Wang Wei

Tanya jokes that she comes to the East Coast now only for funerals.

When the population was whiter, they fawned over the Korean.

Once, when young and proud, I tried to grasp the enormity of the past.

The future was spread out for us to go in any direction we wanted.

You couldn’t believe what the rhododendrons do around here.

I was only five when Dad told me I had died. “You drowned,” he said.

“Wanna give it a go?” my brother asks, nudging me with his 12-gauge.

You live in this country, you put up bars, you train your dogs to snarl.

Her husband is away at the family cabin, and she is glad for the space.

Amy put her arm around his shoulders. My boy. Isn’t he wonderful?

She always came back with her lipstick smeared all over her mouth.

We’re fat! So what? They hadn’t yet tired of this chant, the play’s refrain.

We’d never had a cross word, but I’d never corrected him.