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If This Were Baltimore East A spray of change in the lilies and loose rubber, she pulled close to the wall. She smiled at the trucks, her handful of loot. Hallelujah, he said, converting. West Like 4 miles of cakes, they counted…
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18081512
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and dreamed itself infinite.
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18331514
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I wrote this during a poetry workshop at the Atlantic Center for the Arts with Carolyn Forché. January, 2015. So much more has happened since that stunning week.
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1795159
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fat furry marmots who play hide and seek
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2339155
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Quiet. You sit quiet as a mouse in the corner. Push a little doll around and hum la-la-la so they forget you’re there while they have the cocktail hour.
That’s how you find out they’re killing Grandma.
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19391511
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There was nothing to do but dream ourselves forward. Nothing to do but not die.
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Will it//
scare us shitless when we can finally/
draw ourselves a likeness of it?
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1475159
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Conjure calamity and calamity comes.
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17481511
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In the Ardennes for the the first time...
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1729155
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"when I say bag, what I mean to say is…"
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1089155
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The trio stuffed their grilling equipment in a battered van and left for Dixieland Speedway at 4:30 am.
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2089153
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He stopped the shower and recounted his life, now Kin-less and plain.
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2366157
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“Black is up, red is down,” I said, knowing he turned to pleasant memories of lawbreaking when he felt discouraged. I asked him to meet me for coffee. He said he hadn’t bought a coffee in a year.
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You should have
marked that territory like a conquistador,
mounted him like an equestrian, left no
what-ifs in your wake.
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I bear the wrong gin. Your air conditioner runs cold. It is either frigid or off, the gauge broken. You are not too old to overlook these things. You can't be choosy, but you will never beg. Just an occasional choice as you settle into this…
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2249157
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On Monday I cook coq au vin. Fatty yellow skin detached and floating in the sauce.
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1600157
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Mark Reep is a faded Polaroid oracle taped to the only unbroken window of an abandoned house in Ithaca NY.
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12461511
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When the compost thaws the past oozes out into the present....
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3319159
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“How’s the Pinto running?” Sean says. It’s been awhile. Maybe Darcy won’t remember him.
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15021511
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When Lois finally found him down there, Johnny was wedged between a large rock and the trunk of an old, long since fallen, cottonwood tree. She said as she got to him, she heard his gurgling breath, fighting fiercely to stay alive. When she saw the deep, gathering, red…
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18031510
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He died a printer finding late/
after so much selling himself selling/
a craft that pleased and paid enough
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You anchor the real
You make love to the true
I am bound to you in consecration
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Larry lies on top of her, he kisses her, his lips, she thinks, are dry, but she prefers dry to wet because overly wet in the mouth is never a good thing.
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7461517
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This is the best excerpt you'll ever read.
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2940158
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The goddamn artist. This was her fourth inquiry, first visit. Her eyes fluttered shut as she leaned against the cold porcelain.
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2690159
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Listen to me, at the end of all things, and I will tell you her story.
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1322158
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I'm standing on a toilet, trapped behind a stall. Watching Father U mop up the blood.
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3032156
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I had told myself that I would not cry. That I would hold on to my anger so tightly, there would be no space for pity.
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21811511
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When we're near, there is a black cloud, such as Sylvia Plath described in her unabridged journal, that semi-appeared in her rental cottage where she and Ted Hughes lived in Cornwall. The cloud filled the center of the room where she sat alone.
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1693156
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Call it a spell or a prayer or a ritual; it worked.
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