The Congratulant
“Marius Beck had been big, in both connotations of the word.” Story of the Week (June 6), by Knud Sørensen. Translated from Danish by Michael Goldman.
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Skeletons with Music
“Then you married the bloke from Brown, severed ties, didn’t invite me to your wedding—afraid I’d stick my hand up your bodice…” Weekend Poem, by Eleanor Levine.
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Do you believe in doctors?
“…Now they peer into the darkness/ and sort out right from that which wronged you./ They find an offender…” Poem of the Week (June 1), by Adham Smart.
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We’ve Got Each Other and That’s a Lot
“Experience has taught us that the middling people are more desperate. They are more likely to believe my Mammy on the telephone and then later, at their front door in a dirty t-shirt. They are easier to destroy than the very rich.” By Jan Carson.
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Curlew
“I couldn’t go home. I knew I’d done something wrong – I felt guilty and scared. I stroked the grey grass, pulled out a strand and ran the seed head between my finger and thumbs. The shower of seeds billowed out then blew back onto my navy coat…” By Chrissie Gittins.
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Beautiful Existence
“Time compresses. Time expands. Time stops being time. Everything feels bloated and make-believe.
But it ends. It does end. It ends with the birds…”
By Lara Williams.
Fly
“I let her zigzag the room in the lazy circles that earned her the nickname. Her statement was not directed at me. It was part of the process, part of the figuring out.
I let myself wonder how she died. Painful or quick? Her own fault or no-one’s?”
By David Hartley.
Open-Plan
“not one person in the office knows/ that Henderson keeps a panther in his spare room at home…” By Neil Elder
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Life Just Swallows You Up
“Father dies during the appetizers. Mother/ keeps on eating. How’s work? she says. I/ pour more wine…” By Tania Hershman.
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I am Where
“I am on the roof when the bridge falls into the river – the concrete buckles in stages/ bits of road slip towards the two-mile wide water, as men and women in suits/ screech and jump from their cars, running uphill to the river bank;/ an exercise they had been training for on the treadmills at Goodlife…” By Julie Morrissy.
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