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17 Things More Important to Americans than Poems, Poets and Poetics:

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Today’s new YouTube kitten;

Same Trailer, Different Park

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Suddenly everything is delaminating People are popping right off the surface of humanity I am coming loose from my previous lives

Imitation of Life

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The watermelon slices were painted wood, because they held their shape better in the heat. The photo was done night-for-day with bright spotlights to make for sharper outlines than natural light could provide. In actuality, it is all shadows.

Measures

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Blending in at a rock concert in ballet flats was harder than I thought it would be. The heavy eye makeup and lit cigarette I never brought to my lips put me somewhere between “Trying Too Hard” and “Bless Her Heart.”

Wake

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At my daughter's wake Mr. Aleford, her teacher, poked out his pointy nose, sniffing my cologne. How could I be plastered with this, at a time like this? Well, dear Sir, Two reasons. One, to hide the booze. And two, because my wife and I had made feverish love that…

Kafka, Smashed

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perhaps I am only being transported not for replacement but for repair

Virgo

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I said he was cold. I said I like cold.

Hearing the Usual Reports

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In its own defense against what is too concrete the mind allows a magical thought--

Skunks

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I tell people that we leave out food for the creatures to appease the skunk gods.

Purple Lady, Lavender Afternoon

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—Pretty tulips, said the woman.

Curves

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and the smiles light the way when the wind blows the darkness

A Fib

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We want our lives even-cut, …

The Farmer's Sons

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..

Borderline

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You slipped me the key

Freedom

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She tossed the big bird into the air. It wobbled, then flew away.

The Boys

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The Boys The Boys, they call my brothers in the neighborhood, or Those Boys. The Taylor Boys. Sometimes, Mom calls them Thing One and Thing Two, like in The Cat in the Hat. Those bad boys. Nobody has brothers like my brothers, kicked off the school bus, barred…

Alteration

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I was seeking nothing more than this: to have my suit altered.

A Journal of the Plague Year: Day 289: Valedictory for a Clown

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the end of this journal

Stories Around People

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Stories Around People An Event Facebook lived in midtown, for there the people and windows shone like water. Though it would board the bus—1 day—and ride to the sea, where people said words like sea and where the city shone in the waves…

Some People

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But those burning red numbers persist in my mind and I can't rest 'till they're gone They always come back Like the cat in that childhood song.

American Triptych

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It’s always fun and easy/ to punish the poor

How To Train Mules

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“Mules don’t like to dive, Esther.” “I said maybe, Hugh. Maybe.”

Deep June Pool

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I may be the shadow that I am, but I only ever loved you.

The Sadness of Thrift Shops

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They couldn’t have done it better if they’d waved guns around in the air.

Signs

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The monkey did not live for long. He’d lost interest in the stuffed dog pretty much right away. The farther away the shuttle, the more garbled and fanciful the sign language the monkey had been taught became.

Summertime

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I am so happy to see winter almost gone

Granny Medicine

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Antibiotic ointment didn't help. Maybe Granny medicine would.

Nothing Ever Stays Looking

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The same, some things you Can't explain, most trees Have felt it go bone dry at the roots before. I've learned to let love Go bye bye. You think they don't Want to answer your pathetic knocks, But they're…

The Writing Class

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I ask if anyone has a poem or a story they would like to read. Everybody's hand shoots up.

Burn

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No one believed me when I told them this: I took all of my novels and tossed them into the fire.