Poetry | Page 14 | wisconsinacademy.org
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Poetry

when you diethis lady named alicebut probably karenwalks you across the street

I always wanted to be like the wild women in old movieswho have whole storm systems of electric hair,who are earthy and hotten things upand whose great talent is in letting themselvesgo, go, go. Oh, let it be me,

"Always stirfrom left to right,"my mother saidmoving the wooden spoonthrough the chocolate pudding.

After allGrandma stirredfrom left to right.

While Cardinal Swanson flareshis satin sleeves on high to let flythe word of God, the little bird,swift and sweet as a stolen kiss,having lost its way in, seekinga way out, tries flying

In the window, hung on fishing line, three prismed crystal globescatch and refract whatever rays dive down between apartment blocks:kaleidoscoping stars of rose, blue, saffron light dance crazily

Even one and one’s loneliness,the we of our cats or the we of

two horses in the autumn field,side to side, head to rump,

briefcases into the dinosaur, counterfactual jackals slavering centipedes in stone: that’s a fine spelunking! way to beak the ink face, gerrymander. to press always fibers between plate glass, a way to break snakeskin boots in!

Griselda waits. Child eater. Good wife.

The stories we are told as childrenleave mute tethers, limning the interiorof grey matter, the hollowed synapse.

clone keeps a diaryclone writes in codeclone taunts me

The book that caused me the most anguish […] the one I feel most tender toward.—William Faulkner, 1955

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