Christmas Card from Kentucky
By Poetry Issue 97
They wished they could take their friends with them when they moved. It wasn’t far, trading one small town for another, not even a hundred miles across the state line. A point of pride to keep in touch, long distance calls on Sundays after supper, person-to-person for Carleen to catch them up on the local…
Read MoreSmokers, Sunday Morning, 1975
By Poetry Issue 82
Three or four of them congregated outside the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church in McKenzie, Tennessee, savoring the last cigarette before service, voices low and knowing, a slight rasp-edge to their laughter. Cigarettes would kill you— I was ten years old and could read what it said right on the pack—but ignoring warnings…
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