WEBVTT

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A lot of great poems
here I'm passing by.

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So I think I'll end with this
final poem called "Missing."

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I try to extend the notion
of "Extra Room" to the dead.

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"If I told you simply that the
bed in the Baptist hospital

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last occupied by Cora
Stokes is empty again

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and the patient
didn't go home, you'd

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be likely not to
feel much interest.

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So I'm adding here
the news that she's

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gone missing, that any
tip on her whereabouts

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will be highly prized.

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Cora Stokes-- female,
African-American, 47,

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5 feet 5 inches, slender
with a mole on her chin

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and a small scar over
her right eyebrow.

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Last seen the day before
yesterday in the cardiac wing

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by a night nurse who didn't
like the looks of her chart.

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Till a week ago, a teacher
of botany at Jefferson

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Junior high in Chesterfield.

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On Wednesday nights, a player
of bridge with three women

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she's known since grade school.

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Left-handed, slaps her
head with her left hand

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when she makes a mistake in
bidding made by beginners.

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Owner of a bungalow on Cherry
Street, three bedrooms.

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One occupied by her
mother, Bessie, 76,

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crippled by arthritis.

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One by her daughter,
Trish, 11, a fifth grader

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at Holy Angels no Baptist
school nearby being available.

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Single mother,
observed by neighbors

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on weekends working with
daughter in vegetable garden

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while mother looks on
from a Canvas chair.

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Observed on Sundays driving
the pair to second Baptist

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on Randolph street.

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Believes that her
God sees everything.

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Not sure what he does
with the information.

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An abstainer from
alcohol for 11 years,

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except for the break
after the operation when

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a lump in her right
breast was removed.

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Moviegoer with a preference
for a heavy domestic drama.

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Three handkerchief
features that serve

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to keep her heart
soft and flexible.

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Worried she has no
room in her heart

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for two backbiting
colleagues, two teachers she'd

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assign some serious time in
purgatory if she were Catholic.

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Reader of the personal
columns in the star.

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Confident she'll be happier when
she swears off men and doesn't

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relent as she did the last time.

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Lover of swing band music.

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Owner of a canary she
gives a run of the house.

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An hour at dusk, the
time of day that for her

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seems least confining, most
open to possibility to change.

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If your life seems
closed to the possibility

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of lasting significance, I
guarantee it will change.

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If any information
you offer leads

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at last to her being found."

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Thank you.

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