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The Stillness on West 144th Street

The way home from Sally’s reeks with garbage, piss, and sweet rot pushing up through the sidewalk. I’m not much better. Hair stringy with grease, breath sour from ginger beer, I’ve danced off the week to a bar mitzvah medley of Def Leppard and the Black Eyed Peas. The white bricks of my building cut…
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The meek shall inherit the earth

A woman dies in Palermo. Thofania has poisoned her husband, and others, but her name gathers flies. It is her goddaughter’s that drips cold, colorless, into folklore. Giulia sells cosmetics. Her bestseller gets rid of unwanted blemishes. It is Aqua Tofana, a tincture of tin and arsenic. It kills in four doses. The doctor dismisses…
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How Many Snouts

an adaptation of Hecuba & Hecate If I had been weaving when the ghost came for my daughter, I might have tangled him in my threads and pushed him up into my tapestry of Troy as it was before the fires ruined it and stank up my wool. Wouldn’t that vex him. Me, too, a…
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Bites, Jan.

The news was doing animal videos, so Jan decided to make pancakes. They came off golden-brown, and the humidity was low enough to open the front door and let a flowery breeze through the kitchen. Jan sang over the stove, flipping the last pancake and swallowing phrase to phrase. The cinnamon made her salivate. And…
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