Sometimes I forget how to speakand have to shake words outlike salt I am used to being alone When I am walkingearly in the morningor after rainand I accidentally step on the snails—their tiny shells cracking unfairly underneath my feet. I always apologize
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No one thinks of me until small trees die.Or maple saplings bolt, threaten alley dumpsters, then here I am.Rank with basement must. Sawdust stuck to my wet mouth. Now wrap your arms around my barrel body, my gravity. YeahI’m a dull slug in a joke of a box
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I’m having trouble with endings.I’m not drinking enough wateror listening to any new music.To me it all sounds like a cell phoneringing and tastes like repetition.Look, you can’t hand me a hammerand not expect me to pound something.Sure, the Grand Canyon is
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Maria makes time to iron out all the creases in her white shirts. Maria has a workout schedule and takes evening art classes. Maria never burns the toast. Maria buys bath rugs from IKEA’s premium range. Maria knows the difference between Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano.
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At night my eyelids flutter like birds— crazy ones, like in Hitchcock. Thought upon thought upon thought lines up in my head like ducks to be shot at the fair. The ozone layer—my friend who hasn’t called—did I send the Visa bill?
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The airport is full of peoplewho look like people we used to know. Every third face a memory, a whelming obligationto say hello to another not quite so-and-so.Swallow your tongue.He is not your father who stands in the terminal—a pillar—the same totem-carved face, the same crag-eyed detachment.He won’t
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I take this beating heart out and place it on the ground next to me. I won’t need it anymore. Please, take away my ability to feel, This cavernous pain in the hollow of me. Pulsating. Ringing out. Exacerbated. Am I a
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The wolf woman takes out the last of her curlers, puts her slippered feet up on the coffee table. Well-fed, she settles in for a lazy morning. If those sons of Ask and Embla don’t want her eating them, they shouldn’t taste
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Trying to avoid the snails after the night’s rainstorm, the crack and squelch of sorrow DS Maolalai has been nominated nine times for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, “Love is
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“In the middle of the charnel ground . . . we can finally contemplate groundlessness.” —Pema Chodron I. Our mothers do us a grave injustice, telling us we’re special, that our drawing is the best in our kindergarten class, that we are the
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