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MPPR VIII by Linda Warren
Your poem made almost everyone cry, the poem about your daughter, the catch in your voice. And then the Yankee storyteller giving you advice: buck up, which, being a poet, you can’t afford to do.
Six poets walking in the woods could not stay together, no surprise there, but, remarkably, kept count of collective ticks, so that when they met at the abandoned house by the lake, with the No Entry sign at the door, and all trooped in, they collaborated on the rules: check hair, legs, socks, and necks. Check out the stairs, broken and holed, which nonetheless support the weight of poets, trespassing, but stepping lightly, noting spiders on the sills, photographing dead dragonflies, missing decks, doors to nowhere. Poets love doors to nowhere.
The giant road tick has six legs, which is, coincidentally the number of the poets who discovered it, and the number of bottles of wine drunk (unevenly) by the poets who discovered it. This is also the number of photographs taken of the moon on the night the tick was discovered and also the number of times the tick looked at the moon, which was full and round and gauzed in cloud and lovely and no doubt the leader of the pack of poets who wanted to rise over the lake and sail the sky and shadow the distant shore and couldn’t, except metaphorically, so they discovered the giant road tick, nailed it down with words, but, walking back, looked carefully where they stepped.
Broken Heart by Gordo Elliott How can it be that we travel for years then you move?
I mope for eons, like the dust bunny in the Swiffer commercial, not doing anything, not good enough for any duster, bees in my stomach, afraid to meet new people.
I remember the old Franklin stove in the corner now and then puffing smoke while cooking pot roasts and coffee. I miss the wood crackle as the red eye of Jupiter grows and bursts into flame.
I still see the blue jeans and faded pink sweater you always wore, and the gold chain I gave still hangs around your neck.
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