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I can't help screaming sometimes. It's so soft the way children slipped into me, The hard part comes with jaws and a clench like the jaws Of grasshoppers digesting what we've sown. The corn, tender lettuces, arugula. Nobody said Arugula when I was young. It's common knowledge Daddy Long Legs Are the most venomous, but cannot bite I only know two things. The antler of the deer has velvet And a morning glory tendril Years to twine and curl. The things I know are soft The way my son opens his heart, the way His hair felt after he cut five year's of length Looking like the Sixties in our house based on a Sixties Romance. My son hauls gravel in a green truck. He's only home a week, but it's work we know him for And work that keeps him strong. Like his father And mine, his father's father. And so we grow a man. "Someday he'll be helpful," the midwife said. It was a full harvest moon. The house had no water. His head was velvet. |
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Premiere Issue (Issue #1), June, 1998 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.