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Barth looked after his students beyond anything expected of him.

In a few days the troops were to go further on. I left the next day.

He ached to move into and out of her body and make her feel him fiercely.

Takis brought down the demons that would pursue him the rest of his life.

Sometimes these fools shoot themselves, playing with their weapons.

They were such dummkopfs they kicked out the Jews.

I caught a breath of that fear, and hid, that day, from the messenger.

It was a very strange dinner. I didn’t dare ask my parents questions.

No woman he’d ever been with responded so unmistakably.

Frank Avery came into the kitchen. In his left hand he carried a .22 pistol.

poor Larry. you never asked to be raised from your tomb.

I’m told that even during war, she took the time to put on lipstick.

Left Behind climbed the Octopus Tree to find the source of fire.

The talk was heady, but the conversations were dead-ends.

Desire whittled me a tool I’d never seen but knew how to use.

That’s how a lifetime passes, closing the wound, a million stitches.

I take a sip of Turkish coffee and wrinkle my nose, like a baby.

Their breath rose in small clouds. Their flag rippled above them.

Over the air conditioner, she hears, unmistakable, the bleating of a siren.

Each time he retells that morning my dad forgets I was there too.

When I was a child I once hallucinated that the laugh track was for me.

I never entered no-man’s-land by any light brighter than the palest moon.

We study your expressions, your cragged face, evidence of winds.

There are certain defects which well mounted glitter like virtue itself.

We could hear the parade three blocks before it arrived at our corner.

Fletcher was a squad leader. He ought to be able to get a girl.

Third Place

I had that feeling of being young again, immortal, wearing a magic war shirt.

With a world full of foolishly dangerous men, what’s a mother to do?

Men can’t sense like that. Or won’t. Even a father don’t dare get that close.