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The Dog-Eared Page
At The Arraignment
Which of us has never broken a law? / I died for you — a desperate extravagance, even for me. / If you can’t be merciful, at least be bold.
February 2021In The Middle
of a life that’s as complicated as everyone else’s, / struggling for balance, juggling time.
January 2021Morally Indefensible
It is often said of laying hens, veal calves, and dogs kept in cages for experimental purposes that this does not cause them to suffer, since they have never known other conditions. . . . This is a fallacy.
December 2020The Only Real Story
I think of the children who will never know, intuitively, that a flower is a plant’s way of making love, or what silence sounds like, or that trees breathe out what we breathe in.
November 2020If I Were God
If I were God, I would make a world just like this one, where everyone comes raw and naked and dependent into it; where everyone enters bloody between the legs or through the cut belly of a woman; where nothing is for certain and there is so much to learn.
October 2020Letter To My Father
Stride from the crowd to seize the president’s arm before another roll of paper towels sails away. Thunder Spanish obscenities in his face. Banish him to a roofless rainstorm in Utuado, so he unravels, one soaked sheet after another, till there is nothing left but his cardboard heart.
September 2020The Race
I used my legs and heart as if I would
gladly use them up for this,
to touch him again in this life
Easter Morning
Like peasants everywhere in the history / of the world ours can’t figure out why / they’re getting poorer. Their sons join / the army to get work being shot at.
August 2020Digging Up The Roots
In this desecrated area, the women searching for firewood must dig up the roots of the trees they have long since cut down to make space for crops.
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