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The thirsty mule's lips at my ear, I died alongside the river. I died in the media event, with the overhead luggage and antimacassar, my neighbor's dark drink spilled in my lap. I died in the hospital, the waiting room's television full of the Sopworth Camel's excreted black smoke; I died in my favorite armchair…

Only the fluttering pages of a few songbooks left. At the bar, the large, gawky males idle over jigsaw puzzles: sailing ships in profile, sad steamers adrift on a wedge of unbelievable blue. Tired of running, the rugged womenfolk nodded off hours ago. Where else to dream on a chilly night, the planet hurtling down…

We step onto the lake, empty platter of white. Dark huts dot the drifted, scalloped vastness, huts of the regular men. We go way out and dig, leather mittens lapping the snow. The ice below is a black mirror, black as an animal's eye! I am sure we have found something new that no one…

Shame kept coming back that year, a broken record, a broken mother leaning in the door, the sunlight behind and through her cotton dress, caressing those places that haven't been caressed in years, thin silhouette of legs, collapsing hips, breasts hanging flat with all the shame they can bare. Even as you're leaving, even on…

After fifteen-years, after surveyors dug up what they had buried, we learned that the neighbor's lilacs were really ours and you could take flowers before dark. Let's go out now, Mother, before tea and cut handfuls. Then while we fill jars with aspirins and ice, you can tell me that you memorized every back road…

When you were first born, your eyes were blue and you couldn't see but what you felt was real. In the crib you screamed against the bars and no one came and that was knowing. The milk pale blue from the mother's breast shone through your new skin. A lode of fear and hiding place…

First the slow dream of bourbon and gasoline Horses bare their teeth as they are herded into boxcars Leaves rustle at the edge of a soccer field Then motorcades drift through clean intersections And the pedestrians stalled if only for seconds Watch their own reflections shrink in store windows Next they throw the plastic down…

I knew I'd end up facing his psychiatrist, telling him of my bedtime review of everything I'd eaten that day, my skill at silently forcing up anything that would keep me from feeling bone. I also knew that doctor would be followed by another who would ask me questions. I was twenty-five and good at…