Category: Uncategorized
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Letter to a Poppy
Little ars poetica, little obvious symbol, stupidly and just yesterday I took your blooming as a promise that for weeks I could walk by and be happy at the sight of you, tiny flag blazing among the green and brown of mulch and weed, the color of fire, alive. But…
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Long Black Veil
Ten years ago, on a cold dark night Someone was killed, ‘neath the town hall light There were few at the scene, but they all agreed That the slayer who ran, looked a lot like me The judge said son, what is your alibi If you were somewhere else, then…
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Having Lunch With the First Grade
I daydream while they play I Spy: purple grapes, orange orange, pink strawberry milk. My habit of attachment persists: I want this to last and last. What was it Whitman said? Full of life now, compact, visible. The teacher claps twice to make the children listen, the children clap three…
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The Famous Athlete Says
for L to become a winner you must lose so many times you forget that winning is possible and win so much you see that winning means nothing. The famous artist says I kept going. That was all. We don’t know what the artist or athlete who was not…
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Mayday Sonnet as Distorted Mirror
The melting snow proves everything that unfolds in time comes to an end. Suppose a certain number of years ago your grandmother was born. The sky swirled with pink seeds she’d grow up to call helicopters. It’s too windy: the souls of the dead must be unsettled. The souls of…
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My Grandmother Speaks of Beauty
I could eat them with a spoon Herman would say every time he drove the tractor over and saw them playing on the red dirt bank: they’d climb up and up and slide down so fast they wore their palms raw stopping. Suppose there was a pageant among them, he…
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Kali Kali Kali
for Clayton Lockett, died April 29, 2014 for J.V. Brown, died March 7, 2014 for Iris, who was never born Kali descended and asked me to describe her in three words. I said goddess of destruction. She said goddess of time and change. I said that’s five words. She…
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Earth Day Poem for Amelia
I was going to tell the story of how you drew a sign that read globl warming is hapning please help with two circular, frowning polar bears and speech bubbles: Help! and how I made twelve copies of the sign and spent an evening helping you post them around the…
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If
IF The mind wants everything that isn’t. Its running list of alternatives is constant and vivid: I would have been a choreographer in a bigger city if I’d had more talent as a dancer or a farmer if I’d loved the land better. If I hadn’t watched the video of…
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After a Stomach Bug
Every regular day is a blessing. Thank you, universe, that I am not kneeling over a toilet bowl vomiting. Such violence, over for now, all surfaces Cloroxed. I am free, for awhile, to sip fizzy water and stroll the sidewalks of the living. The daffodils are almost blooming—what a paradise,…
Kimberly O'Connor 