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White Folks

I was working in the yard, raking out the sunny patch where I plant tomatoes and cucumbers, and feeling the pot gummy I’d eaten a half hour ago start to come on, announced by an uneasy self-consciousness and a brightening little buzz.

The Other Side Of The Moon

A Tribute To Lyn Lifshin

A submission from Lifshin would often include dozens of poems about a single subject: a relationship, a memory, dancing the tango. (Dance — including ballet and ballroom — was her second great love, after writing.)

Fear

Of failure, of the high dive, of other people

Sunbeams

Show me a man or woman alone and I’ll show you a saint. Give me two and they’ll fall in love. Give me three and they’ll invent the charming thing we call “society.” Give me four and they’ll build a pyramid. Give me five and they’ll make one an outcast. Give me six and they’ll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they’ll reinvent warfare.

Stephen King, The Stand

Accidents

An unplanned pregnancy, a twisted ankle, a case of dynamite

Home Range

The mare saw two of her herdmates die when she was captured. One, an exhausted gray stallion, fell and broke his neck in the trailer; the other, a chestnut foal, only weeks old, was chased until its leg fractured, and it had to be euthanized. That was the first this mare knew of our kind. Of our kindness.

Bravery

Facing the police, facing your parents, facing the truth