1854 15 14
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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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185422
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185453
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Our mothers died in childbirth. Taken in by the village, our new mothers taught us to wave at the river boats, to sell our trinkets to tourists. They offered us coins of a foreign currency and little pathetic smiles. By nightfall, our fingers bled. Then came…
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185452
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Some books are like old friends and when you read them, you no longer feel alone.
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185386
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Here I am in the city where we walked side by side, you had driven a great distance and lost your way somewhere where exits left the highway from both directions and unpredictably.
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185355
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While the other kids blew bubbles, Maddy clung to my neck. She didn't cry or scream, and she held on loosely, not with the death grip some kids have. For five Wednesday afternoons, Maddy wrapped her pudgy arms over my shoulders and rested her bottom on m
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18532214
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I thought each day died inside the clock.
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185332
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Hair today...gone tomorrow
The sun beats down
on my balding crown.
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185322
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Hi, I'm Harmony Korine. I esteem douchebags.
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185394
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A jollier zombie you shall never find. You must trust me on this!
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185300
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"Did I have a choice? Could I just open my eyes, did I have to ‘see’ as he was telling me now I could? I decided to go for it. What did I have to lose? This was all a dream, too much driving to get here, too much reunion, too much food, too much beer. Or
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185321
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"Look, Ted, I'm on a timer. It's really hell here, you can't imagine. And I have a chance to get paroled early, if you do me a solid."
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18531211
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The cataclysm of all those photons/
mad to be a part of you
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1853167
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Under nervously flickering fluorescent lights / your name will grow / fed by the tongues of Those Who Never Leave
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185321
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I look at that wall, it has piss-stain yellow paint and water scars from several years of leaky pipes. I say I wouldn’t mind that, if he took out some of that wall.
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1853136
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4. Hers blocking driveway, his diagonal in grass
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185332
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A true Rowdies fan begins every conversation about the band with a legend. She would be impressed if he knew the story.
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185334
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Sunday, Nolan and I drop by the ice rink on 10th and Alma to watch the amateur hockey leagues battle it out in an unspoken yet assumed class war: the buff, unemployed rink bums who can grind ice, cross-check, and stick handle like the pros, versus the dou
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185200
|
Beautiful,
a country left abandoned by the parade path.
The soldiers that typically occupy this place,
temporarily removed to neighboring lands;
congregating together,
backs to the native.
I benefit from the accidental diversion.
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185231
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Everything is painted black that isn’t glass, velvet, neon, or chrome. The club is cold, and the DJ who broke-up with me while I forgot I was stoned is spinning his favorites to an empty floor. Endings have a rhythm. I heard this one coming. I can hear it
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185284
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They knew every word.
They knew EVERY word!
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1852105
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'Do you feel that, my little one?' Stillness. Calm. I felt the baby move her tiny little feet and smiled.
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18521513
|
We lived on the edge of a tiny Iowa town, and picked corn fields were steps away.
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185251
|
“What would you think if I committed adultery?”
She pauses very briefly before replying.
“What, you got time on your hands?”
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185141
|
On the way home, “Friendly honk,” he said.
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185132
|
I don't know if I'm going to get Alzheimer's, but know I don‘t want to. That's why I just read “100 Simple Things You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer's“ by medical journalist Jean Carper. Doing simple things is something I'm good at. And while I'm…
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185121
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I remember ...all the teenagers offered no-longer favored CDs, last year's cell phones, third-place trophies, team jerseys, played-out videogame cartridges, and candy-colored miniature stuffed animals...
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18511612
|
It's the little things that trip us
up: a small hole in a level field,
an innocuous root in a well-trod
path, a disinclined sidewalk...
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1851135
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That led to the first aid box on the bed at 3 in the morning, but what about those veggies?
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185174
|
They had been wintering on the Cape under gunmetal skies...
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