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After murder,

the complex changes

names. The Flats,

The Villas, pretty gauze

for old wounds. As if

we forgot the bullets,

the children that fell, the angry

boyfriends living w/children

they do not love. I drive by

& try to remember when

pieces fit. A cloud

of cardinals explodes

from a snow drift, the splash

of my tires etching dirt

in the bank. All this flying,

impact, stain. Don’t tell me

you can’t see.

from dying in the scarecrow’s armsFind it in the library

Copyright © Persea Books 2018
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Persea Books.

Published in Mitchel L.H. Douglas Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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