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Children

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This was a dream in which I didn’t know fear.

Seattle November

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He ate husks of bone and old paper scraps with yesterday's headlines, blowing down the street like tumbleweeds now at four o'clock in the morning.He wrapped himself in an old army coat against the November winds as he tramped back and forth, back and forth, up the ten…

Existential Weather Report

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I had a moment of clear inter-species ideation...

Kaddish

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Summer nights or frozen winter, the crackles of his black.

Three o’clock in the Morning

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It's Always the Quiet Ones

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I know this much: right now I’m over a thousand miles from my brother. I’ve been watching the odometers, adding it all up.

The Kept Man

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If the Titanic rises from the bottom of the sea, I will meet you on deck, in a deck chair. Fully dressed for a change.

Land's End

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Wearing Land’s End clothes at life’s end Driving around in circles in your Codgermobile with 3 good hubcaps. Who wouldn’t want to steal that?

Three : Sixteen

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We are a city of overworked workers.

The Dead

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The dead want you to calm down.They are quite fine, and don't needyour post-mortem tears, the flowers and veils; their names mispronounced by preachers. None of your catechisms will do -- especiallyfor the children, who know them well and need no…

Beelzebub

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The jewels were dragonflies, buzzing lazily, Beelzebub’s hair a golden meadow.

The Thing on the Stair

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Autumn brings It

My Friend

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Remember when we went to New York to take our test? We looked for cheap hotels near the test site, and there was the "Hotel Earle." Twelve bucks a night. The clerk behind bullet-proof glass, smiling a knowing smile. Pubes still on the sheets, but we couldn't sleep anyway,…

What We Give

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Oh, what jealousy does to us! What love does to the living!

Gertrude

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When we were young and small we played in the orchard. Mom made apple pies and fried apples, caramel apples and apple sauce, apple cider. Grandma’s apple butter recipe.

The President is Giving the State of the Nation Address Today

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But the world is smaller when I see it / from the crook of your neck.

Cloud Shaped Like a Heart

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The man who will lead you can be nothing if not already found underneath the light-heartedness of heaven, (dawn) if not under the light-heartedness of snow. He would have to have happiness already sewn into his soul. He bears no burdens

Librarians! Are You A Book Whisperer, A Truth Wizard, Or an Information Goddess?

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I'm not a librarian. I'm an Information Goddess.

Disappearing Ink

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Our ink was disappearing. All of it.

Peach

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She's standing outside the 7-11, skirt up round her ass. Ripe. She could be a whore but she looks way too classy. Plus she has a huge soda - I'd guess diet - and a Twinkie.

A House Made of Stars

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My cousin had put them up last year, showed me when we stood on her bed as her fingers pointed, traced over the outlines, then turned out the lights, so that I could see them glow.

We Poor Splendid to Look On

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Leave us to hide our sundials in our caves— / discard our scrolls that guide no more, / to time our nights to learn if we can grieve / —we’ve too much noise or less than we can hear . . .

War ; a fragment

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Lela, my grandmother.

Art exploits

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Against// the mysteries and the dark/ it illuminates and shapes

"Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown..."

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A Parody of Keats I stood at silent thought upon a clump Of nettles, swaying in the od'rous air- That blew from my own trousers, by the dump; That it had not blown more lent me despair. The dulcet horn gave melody, rare…

You Pour Vodka In Your Coffee

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I wonder if she is my real mother, if I could get one of those paternity tests and find out if she’s my real mother and if the guy she told me was my father was really my father. I can’t remember him very well, just a lot of him screaming and hollering an

You'll Have To Come Out Because I Won't Let You In

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the pollen of your kisses and the shouts of your love shaking the sky

Valley Rugstore

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He hunched low and forward on his bike, his 14-year old self, flying down the dusty back roads of this Great Midwestern Land, his head full of the smell of the algebraic girl he sat behind in math class just hours ago.

One

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His will is whole, inviolate, and wholly full of possibility.

Ant Farm

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Every time I squished an ant with my finger, I felt a piece of me loosen and chisel off.