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SENĀTUS POPULUSQUE RŌMĀNUS
As we walked slowly through the Forum the Coliseum receding into the late afternoon, the Virgins stood patiently as befits a priestess trained to avoid the stares of passing men, even tourists such as we were, the columns staring down reminding us of our youth despite the birthdays that we celebrated with the joy of…
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ON THE SEDGE
My wife pauses by the placard in the nature preserve and tells me that what I have been calling grasses are in fact a sedge known as sawgrass. She points out the warning that it’s serrated on the edge and earned its name from those who grasped it without knowing or thinking first. I feign…
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IN TRANSIT
Mom died, the text message read, similar words we’ve been hearing too frequently but always leaving us with the same hopelessness. The words my brother, estranged now, estranged then, come to think of it, said two years ago in a quickly left phone message. I thought of confronting him, but when he never answered, I…
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SEARCH
forty-three years I’ve searched for my voice a whisper cracked hoarse one moment fluid another then silent. I shape words which fall off my tongue and lie in puddles on the floor. I step in them slipping regaining perilous toehold. I scream strangled thoughts dreams are forgotten the night laughs, she touches my forehead with…
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ISLAND FEVER
“It’s the difference between anthracite and lignite,” he said with a sort of all-knowing smirk. “Quite the contrary,” she snapped back “It’s the difference between pahoehoe and aa.” He clearly wasn’t pleased,” those examples are like night and day, and you’re in the dark.” “You can’t begin to tell between makai and mauka, but I…
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REQUIREMENT
She moves with the fluidity that suggests she has been trained as a dancer, though she denies it, says that she has no interest in dance, barely tolerates music and then only because it sometimes is a requirement. She smiles, though it doesn’t seem at all natural to her, more another thing she does because…
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JUMPING OFF POINT
She says the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her That on a cosmic scale space is curved and no one wants the short straw anyway. She can, of course, read him, a skill she knows is reserved for women and is one of frustration…
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LISTEN TO DIS
She finds dysfunction rather disconcerting and if I don’t agree she will take it as a diss though I would quickly dismiss that idea as disingenuous. But she is prone to discomfort and displaces those around her in moments of dissonance. She does keep her distance, and tries to be dispassionate and so I can…
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FIRST PERIOD
They stand impatiently in line chattering, giggling, tittering like so many schoolgirls with secrets they promised to keep to their deaths and have to immediately tell a friend. “Did you hear about Letitia?” one says, and goes on to say she shared her journal with several other girls in the eighth grade. It goes on…
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SUSIE
What do you say on the loss of a child? We sat in the lounge drinking a vile potion from a hollowed pineapple giggling insanely for no reason. We wandered the tunnels faces painted, clowns in bedlam. We lay together on a mattress on the floor and listened to Aqualung my arms around you both,…
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an old writer and his words 