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Two Poems

The Burping Seal A lone Tupperware with sky blue lid, it lives on in my kitchen, a reminderof all it once held—loving leftovers of Mom’s greasy kugel or kielbasa,mincemeat cookies, coleslaw or apple pie. Its skin is worn soft from fifty yearsof washing and handling. Back and forthit went from her place to mine. I

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Remnants

I stare at the photographof a bare-chested 18-year-oldtrying to look brutish,crouching as ifready to pounce,projecting his masculinitylest the image fade. Our cells are no longer the same,but he still lives inside me,staring out fromhis secret chamber,where in one corneris a small tablewhere he praysand gazes upwardat Jesus in agony—a votive candle flickers. What would we

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Tiny Centerfold

Into the pregnant night the female moth sends her subtle seductive scent to some unsuspecting male moth and I wonder what crazy pictures form in his little brain. First published in Minnow Literary Magazine Spring 2022 https://minnowliterarymagazine.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/minnow-spring-2022-1.pdf

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Working on My Signature

An author signs a bookto affirm the life within.Written in subconscious code,it is the soul’s imprimatur. Note the perfectly formed lettersin Virginia Woolf’s signature, wholly legibleas if meant to show a balanced soulnever at war with itself. What complexities lurk in the signatureof Edgar Allan Poe, who adorned his letterswith loops and dots, underlined beneathlike

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The Dilettante

I was just going through some of my earlier poems and discovered this one, from my first published collection Trash Picker on Mars.* It reminds me of my early days as a writer when in my rush to fill the page with words I did not always take the time to find exactly the right

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