Category: Poetry
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Basketball Tryouts
A month into sophomore year,the leaves turn to yellow,ACs off, sweaters everywhere.He watches his neighbors play basketball,searches the garage for even a deflated ballto practice near the pool in the backyard.No net, no hoop, no friendspracticing alone like a dog chasing its tail.He convinces himself he’s going to be a star,he’s going to ace the…
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2 sets of Lilies Soon to Bloom
For my birthday, my boyfriend, bought me two bouquets of lilies. I placed the lighter, upstairs, in our bedroom. The smell of the darker set of lilies, it was muted, But the light ones’ exuded, aromatic perfume. The dark lilies, I left on a table downstairs. Those dark ones’ are torn, visual scars that they…
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Lamadrid
It is despair incarnated; it is disorder converted into sound; it is a translation of anger; it is anguish distilled into a black purity. A raging bull has composed this piece through flared nostrils. Horror has asserted its authority in a land of leaking sewers. This noise has emanated from his skull, a cemetery of…
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My Boy Vagary
My boy Vagary saved me And held me in his arms. I was 17 felt all alone but he was full of charm. Not alarmed when he drank my parent’s liquor. Did what we had to do to numb our open wounds. However we could lose ourselves more quickly. But the pain always returned to…
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natal: relating to the place or time of one’s birth (the Oxford Dictionary)
didn’t you rip down the front-porch-lavender? the roots could not resist your blunted claws. you left the soil all ravaged and ruptured drenched with sweat and your vaguely-oriental musk like the crows gorging in the undivided fields at the far-end of summer and severed cornstalks everywhere. didn’t you stand on the threshold before the vicar…
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My Husband’s Teenage Daughter came to live with us Recently
When I hated my music teacher. It was so unfair. And I actually love music to this very day, a music person I would call myself. She sent me to the principal’s office for blowing bubbles in music class on my birthday. And I hated her. And this was before she was forced by a…
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Summer 2012
He fills withfresh air as sun rises.no school.no job.Just him, his computer.His cousin’s basement.depression creeps in,dark angry cloudsswallow his room,paralyze him till dawn.
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The Bog
Moss-heavy limbs fall from charge of a warm southern wind rest in a compost graveyard of other arms that have been Once boasted of leaves awarded with weighted sog You might pray if awarded knees The warm low water releases a fog Time will turn you into swamps breath and a story told around the…
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Grandma’s Closet
The door at the end of the long hall stands open The third bathroom is in there Sent to the room by my mother’s voice busy behind the door of the second common bathroom, the guest bathroom Go use Mimi’s I obey The faint gold light from a bedside lamp whispers as I step twice…
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Crab
A foam washed wreckage to shore breath-bubbles pop in the thin light Early beachcomber fights the gulls for a freshly delivered treasure The minute before dawn you grab it’s back Carry it to your kitchen for a slow boil With a crack a glut of juices spill out Lips suck at the muscle and warm…
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worst of all
The worst of all passes me byLike an actor memorizingA long-forgotten role I go backLearning my entire life by heartAs to not embarrass myself when I introduceMyself to me The worst of all passesme byAs if it were aiming for someoneElse.It will noticeIts mistake.And come back Translated from Hebrew by Natalie Feinstein
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Times Square Heatwave Noon
Put on your flip-flops.The sky is broken. You’ll get hurt.The kid doesn’t get brokenMetaphors. He’ll get hurt.The cut will get infected. HeWill turn into a guru on fifth.Or into a handicap.Whichever comes first.Meanwhile celestial angelsAre trampled on with earthly bootsTrying to pick up the piecesAmidst the throngs of feet with their cupsTo go to go…