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Stroke One, Stroke Two, Stroke Three

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On Monday, May 7, 2018, at the age of 67, I had a stroke.

The Man From the Circus

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‘Last week,’ I said, ‘on the radio, there was a competition. The DJ played a sound-bite of a car going over a cattle grid, and people had to phone in to guess which cattle grid it was. I didn’t phone in, but I knew the answer.’

Star Heart

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This is the place I could find my breath. I didn'tSay I understood it. I only wanted to hold someone andMeant to. I don't care about the rules for caring.This place where I could speak was incredibly far from Where I'd once met you. The place where I could…

Table Thoughts

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“You should've let him drown,” she once told me. Doesn't she see that I did? I'll let her drown, too.

the cold the day left

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in our teens as tough as the cold/we wore denim and flannel with our boots/kicking at whichever wind blew . . .

Somewhere

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...but still, when she whispers that going out now might put her in the mood later he unties from his mooring and sets them both drifting toward the gin-splintered latitudes

Amends

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We met in graduate school. We were both taking a course on teaching using the case study method over at the Business School. I was from psychology. She was from biology. We were both getting Harvard doctorates. But as many people…

Hitting the Wall

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I tried to talk, but only / whispers slithered out.

A Night at the Opera

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I picked out a book to read on the airplane. The title was The Function of the Orgasm by Wilhelm Reich.

Glass

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Her bulldozer of a husband died five years ago.

the ethics of graffiti

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Honey

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Cellulite is legal to have, either way.

WHAT WE REMEMBER MAY NOT REMEMBER US

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1. The clouds and the shadows of the clouds. The early light, like the night undressing herself revealing pink beneath, underneath the glory and the intimacy like early love made of arms only arms fingers and…

Rice

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We construct a paper bridge. The droid walks across it. We follow, one after another, like sentences in a story.

a face made of glass

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.

An Earnest Prayer

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It’s like faith. My battle buddy is out there, I know it, but I can’t see him, nor can I hear him. I just know he’s there, trusting he’ll do what he’s supposed to do, and he’s trusting in me.

April Haiku

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A sardonic moon/ surveys our plight and cackles.

We Walk by Night

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Walking those damned dogs is a pain… a PAIN every night. If it’s not urban skunks, it’s Mormons on bikes… the bastards

cross-quarter days

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sentinels in a frost-blackened field

Morning and Coffee

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A dirtied light falls through/ the grimed windowpanes.

Sparks Beneath the Surface

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If I should wake/ before I die,/ just shoot me through/ the one good eye.

The Loss of a Child

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I watched as the light fled from your eyes, No slowly dimming lamp,

Abduction

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they’d been pumping him with Dilaudid at night, to adjust his palette for what was coming, in the soft lamp light he watched his long fingers sprout pink caterpillar fuzz, knuckles morphed into hinges for Monarch butterflies,

Songlines

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When the planes crashed,when the levees broke,when the ground shook,there was a song I dreamed of,humming subsonic,a chorus of voices and prayersuncorked like the little brown jugthat holds all the love and memories.In the outback, Aborigines believewe create the world by…

Hogging the Lady

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She was not the usual member of the band, not the girl nextdoor, not next to any door, not a regular housekeeper or woman. She was a ditch digger, a pied, circular piper, a mouse hugger.

Bumper Repair: $129.95

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They ask about WWII and he claims no kills...

Lost among the Riff-raff

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Poor, pocked Ceres- dwarf planet/ trapped among mere asteroids-

Lavender, A Liberal

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Betty, batty from hormones, in a fanciful fit, named her daughter Lavender. Husband Don winced. Brothers Donald, John, Billy, and Tom were puzzled and pleased by this sister, this girl, who was a little bit like them, yet not like them at all. …

Sweet Sorrow

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He sat at the bar and waited for her. He looked at the noon drinkers with indifferent eyes.

Black Orchids

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I told him he was just paying for his sins. He gave me a look. "Why me?" he asked.