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A Whole Forest Full of Leaves


by J.A. Pak


and hello is all I got. To honestly say

stars are proofs in single limits of obsession


shining above and around and never at the

forgotten box of me—you're your own invention


loneliness a self-fertilizing seed you fostered

edging perfect clouds with topiary scissors


and we have never agreed


even remembering gates, you grabbing my hand

flesh burnt a skeleton song, your heart, your stars, you


flooding all of God's creation—where's the photo

of that? I'll see you—when will that be more than a greeting?


Go since I didn't forget and this is where you

mean goodbye and you never do; stop at hello.


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Hello Is All There Is

by Darryl Price

to honestly say to you now. Once I would have 

written a single limited edition book

 

on a whole forest full of leaves about the stars 

shining above and around you just to prove that 


these were the only ones I looked at real close and 

personal in my life. But that has become too 


lonely of a profession even for me to 

endure. But those same perfect clouds now hang drooling 


in tatters out of the basement's banished corners 

in forgotten boxes like dead paper fish kites, 


folded into frozen statues like dropped clocks. But 

I have never agreed with you about this, any, 


I never will. I'll see you is as good a new 

grown greeting as you're likely to get from me. But I 


remember opening the gates and you standing 

there firm in the dirt, toothily smiling like a 


skeleton key about to turn on all the charm 

in the universe, only it was my world, my 


room, my heart, my stars, even if I didn't know 

it, in danger of becoming a flooded path.  


There's no return engagement. But I've finally 

put my hand back in my photograph. But that's all.


But I'm going. But you weren't supposed to forget. 

But is this where we mean goodbye? But I dream on. 

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