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The substitute teacher made another attempt at my name. I’m not paying attention and I miss it. He’s wearing a vest. There is a stain on his vest. After roll call, he singles me out. “Miss DuckArmy, I called your name twice.” Maybe there was mustard on his breakfast sandwich.Continue Reading

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On a rickety dock that juts out into an Adirondack lake, my father, a big man, turns around so abruptly that he bumps me into the cold water, and I’m face down and so fascinated with the sand that I don’t think to breathe. I’m three years-old, and the lakeContinue Reading

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You better not runGrandmother says. Off they go like firetruckssounding the alarm with wild laughteras they tear down the hallwaywith grandmother behind chasingwith her heavy steps after their light onesroaring like a dinosaur Lynette G. Esposito, MA Rutgers, has been published in Poetry Quarterly, North of Oxford, Twin Decades, RememberedContinue Reading

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Our swing set is regarded with awe by the entire neighborhood – a country neighborhood with five-acre lots and dairy farms. The swing set is an enormous structure whose concrete footers are as solid as the steel plant where my father, an engineer, manages the laborers who work in theContinue Reading

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My earliest memoryI was maybe 2 or 3On a beach in MazatlánWith an assortment of family. A long stone staircaseThin and windingAscended the beachDisappeared in the city. At the top of the stairsWas an ice cream shopI longed to visitBut hated climbingThe myriad of steps. The trek was dauntingAnd IContinue Reading

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My name means dirt and my brother’s, son of God.Not that he is a saint nor I an angel. I learned to love the smell of mudplaying in a fort constructed by our father out of plastic sheets. Rescue, my brother’s favorite board gameis about War,yet he was the oneContinue Reading

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Pipe cleaner ponies pokewinsome hooves above the stone stage. Conspiracies giggle from the nest of gniessand tree limb. There is no doubt that the fairies are involved withthe tricksy lighting and rustling stagecraft. The vireos and warblers suspend songand disbelief while ponies sprout wings and Pegasus promenades airily in,pastel feathersContinue Reading

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I. Papa takes you to the tracksand lays the pennies on the rails.The bushes are frothy withQueen Anne’s Lace. Fireweed and loosestrifespindle and spike.Some kind of nettlehas to be watched for. Gravel plinks the steelas we head for cover,crushing springy buttercupsand clover as we go. A smell, ferrous, poised,riotously secret,Continue Reading

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I lash out at mother,She reclines at the far end of the sofa Her eyes are glued to the sweat and stale of a B-grade thriller.Yet her tongue is still laced, fiery and aware She fights backReminding me of all the times I failed in high school I rebut,Reminding herContinue Reading