Category: childhood
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‘Social conditioning’ or ‘If Pavlov’s dog cleaned his own doggie dish’
My dishes drip dry – Don’t yours? Do you sometimes see a towel Hanging on the refrigerator door And Mom echoes in your amygdala The dishes aren’t done until They’re dried and put away But you resist the urge to dry your dish And scream in your head – Oh hell no I am the…
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Sycamore ants
In our back yard at the base of a sycamore tree lived brown ants – I would feed them cake crumbs and cinnamon sugar toast on sunny summer afternoons Watch them swarm and carry it away dry days, I would sprinkle water on the ground evenings, I watched them crawl up the bark higher than…
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Cold November School Days
1950’s cold rainy days days of buttered toast hot oatmeal breakfasts three spoons of sugar four, if mom wasn’t looking Days of flannel shirts and sweaters mittens tied with a string run through the sleeves of your coat yellow raincoat with a snap on hood Black galoshes pulled over shoes rows of shiny bend over…
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Homeroom
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by
You woke in autumn darkness from a dream where you were back in 8th grade you were crushing on all the girls but were too afraid to tell them Because you didn’t want them to laugh at you Because you thought you were too skinny Because your mom wouldn’t let you wear cool clothes You…
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The pond
On thousands of sunny days every boy knew there was a monster fish that lived in the bottom of the pond that was the smartest fish that lived in the bottom of the pond that was the luckiest fish that lived in the bottom of the pond that no one ever caught that lived in…
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Monday
rumble rattle squeak yellow school buses betray their coming from two stops away kids on corners clutch books and queue wait for buses to come in view rumble rattle squeak yellow school buses return tired students of diminishing yearn 10-14-19
My husband's poetry 