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Poetry

Bathrooms are the best locale.
All that waste and water and getting clean.

Or trains. The nearly equal passengers.
A phone rings in the kitchen but no one picks it up.

Milk goes bad at room temp. You don’t check your email anymore.
Could only scrawl a message: “I____you

with all my harm.” Each day stacked in the closet. Folded, white—

Why can’t I snap the wishbone, learn to tolerate the chilly floors?

If breath by breath I reckon, if I am to approximate myself—

                               (This, then that, then this again.
                                       Stutter, step, a step.)

Like that woman in the corner seat. I can’t tell if she’s sleeping
or in pain.

If you won’t, then count my leavings.

Bright amnesiac instance,
little red thread on my jeans.

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The Image archive is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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