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Color Wheel

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I remember the tan guinea pig, dead of dehydration. Through the wire bars of her cage I viewed her body. She lay stiff on her side, stretched out, as if in her guinea-pig dream she had been running through grassland, open and close to the sky.

Signs and Wonders

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Bag worms hang in their cloudy white hammocks. This is the month of webs when long-bodied yellow and black spiders sign their autographs.

Whale Lessons

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Even if your heart is as large as a small car, your tongue as heavy as two grown men—even then—you will have to carry it with you wherever you go.

On Mondays, Francesca Takes the Stairs

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The first flight is effortless

Death Is No Big Deal.

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The suite of dark rooms/ extends forever./ It’s no big deal.

I Should Not Have Rushed You Through The Rain

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Mist falls from the opaque sky and splatters crystals in your hair...

Sundays

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Momma’s hands smell of vanilla.

Wayward Souls

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Based on length it looked like a note, lacking the deeper illustration found in full-fledged letters, but also missing were condolences and considering the subject, such sympathies might have seemed appropriate: Dear Mr. and Mrs. Madison, Katie is

Trees Today

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are my only real friends. They don't seem to mind my shuffling down the dirty sidewalks without acknowledging their mere scraggly presences like friendly tombstones. They are growing their hair out again. I've noticed that much. We've got a…

Mice

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Short, but true. Damnit.

Faker

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Jesus came strolling by in his sandally Jesus foot sandals.

Boxwood at Nine

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I am Gloria, age nine, standing with my left hand on the green gate to the yard of the farmhouse that I will always consider Home

The Poem Sits at Home and Envies as It Celebrates Music

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Translation’s not required—music/ sings itself complete and comprehensible

Nausea

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It’s been a series of bad clams

Broken Waters

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Okay, I'm In

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I get what you want done from me. You want the old one two sucker punch that goes straightaway through to the tenderest part of the aching heart, the one that tumbles you out of your old worn out gut wrenching way of living life for…

Done.

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you dug a hole inside my heart and asked me if it hurt

Past Brutalities

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Seven micros

Trout Fishing in America Shorty lives on after the death of his dear friend Richard Brautigan, though sadly

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Maybe, after years of writing poems like letters, he began to notice that no one ever wrote him back.

Astrology for a Better Future

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Nobody looks for Gina between the hours of four and five. Her father is on swing shift for the rest of the summer; his two o'clock- dinner plates are soaking in a sinkful of scummy water. Her mother is fanning herself in the shade of the wisteria, most of her…

A Time for Peace

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When she opens the door, I say hi and introduce her to my friend, a bottle of J.T.S. Brown. She laughs and tells me to come on in before I fall down.

Lavender, a Liberal

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Lavender, a Liberal 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…

Moving On

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When we say "Nanoism is looking for twitter-fiction serials for its current contest," this is one example of what we mean.

GONE

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The box thuds at your feet: mug, plant, wedding photo, the 25-year pen.

The Mommy's Girl

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Her mother dressed her like a little girl would dress a doll.

Displacing Charles the Bald

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I try to envision long-haired men riding horses across a vast expanse, their faces blank as those of my students.

consolations

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we swim in failure

passing in, passing out

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I hate turnstiles and revolving doors

Haiku Haiku, Fattened Feral Kittens, Hobgoblin Test

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and watch the bird play and squirrel play/ and the twitching of cottontail noses

Gargoyle

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they were open weekends if we needed to bring him in for euthanasia.