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For Rosie, and Madalynne, and Ethan(and Bo and Ruth) Dear God,it’s February.And the light paints her pink,[and I’m still a plagiarist,]gawking into my cell phone on the side of 10th Street. My brother and I got new tattoos andI got a concussion fixing my engine andShe has my middle name,myContinue Reading

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The cries and screams of childhood gamescharge through the sulphurous airthat lounges at the old swan pond.Sometimes I swung on the swing so highI could almost see the pond down there.Here I swung on until disturbed bythe ranger coming with his evening order.Now I look back at the still-revolving roundaboutoverContinue Reading

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The spider has devoured every curdand Muffet’s started fading fast away.Rudolph’s requisitioned to the herd, and Chicken Little’s left with too little left to say. The wind once in the willows has stopped blowing.The Phantom Tollbooth’s toll is way too high.Naughty puppets’ noses have stopped growing, and Chicken Little’s stoppedContinue Reading

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We take him to the doctor.What do you want on your face? said the nurse.Godzilla, he said. She painted his face like Godzilla.Rawr, he said.Hello, Godzilla, I said.They plugged his brain into a machine at the hospital. They called it “The Big Brain.” They filled his head up with redContinue Reading

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The memories were always at their worst on clear mornings, especially when she had been cleaning. The smell of fresh linen filled the home and the dryer hummed steadily in the background. This used to be comforting to her, and in the back of her mind, she registered this. SheContinue Reading

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Favorite crayon color, skybloomed as a rose.Gem and the Hologram pink hair,Lazy Lapis Lazuli Lobster that I could walk on a leashand take for picnics of purple peppers and bouillon cubesoverlooking mountains of ice cream cones.Dreamt up under the ironing board orcrawled into the box spring orimagined under a blueberryContinue Reading

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When rumors of a Russian army marching toward Tashkent first reached its bazaars and tearooms, Grandfather shrugged and said, “Khokand, Bokhara, St. Petersburg–it makes little difference to whom we pay our taxes. How much we pay never changes.” When the river dried up and Ali and Salim had to stompContinue Reading

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She remembers snow forts packedwith ammunition, ice balls snivelingdown her back, frost stiffening her mittensbefore she could even launch a defensive. Icicles were nearly as tall as little Mary-down-the-street, who once fell in the sticker bushes,and, before she screamed herself to death,had to be rescued by someone else’s frantic mother.Continue Reading

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Test: Positive The test-tube test was taken this morning.Result: a rust-colored doughnut-shaped ring. That such a means should bring first proof of yousuggests the magic of this fragile life,the sleight-of-love that makes the wish come true.Yet pride insists we make a full disclosure:you were the best laid scheme of manContinue Reading

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They can’t form sentencesso they try every other way to ask for juice.Some adults mistake them for selfish demandsbut the kids share everything.What did the adults think it would look liketo live with somebody who doesn’t understandthe tonal distinction between a question and an exclamation? Terry Trowbridge’s poems have appearedContinue Reading