WEBVTT

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A couple of self-portraits
and then I'll finish with one

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dedicated to Fay.

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"Self-portrait as Shop Window."

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On the bus, thus the passing
parade, All Hallows' Eve.

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Winds swing the hoop skirt
beneath the milkmaid's dress

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of the little white girl
complete with Marie Antoinette

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mole on cheek.

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While into central
Brooklyn, the costumes

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are homemade, the
best, a young blood

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in diaper complete with pins,
Oh, P. Funk or Red Hot Chili

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Peppers?

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Cheekbones apparent
and a rivulet of veins.

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Rhymes with what?

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Planes, gains, claims, trains?

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Bus stops and the
texting children

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act as sentinels letting us
off or on as they please.

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I have often mistaken the
mockingbird for an owl.

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It's a problem I cannot solve.

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There are others,
more difficult.

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I listen again for
the bird's call.

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It's mocking me.

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There seems to be cows
in Roethke's poems

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and birds in mine.

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Nature is ever present, even
unto this great city that

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grumbles and crumbles
and yet allows

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the mockingbird song
and hummingbirds

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wings to flash like a
taste of the cosmos.

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Oh, damn, the wind and
light or praise the rain

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and bright desire for
different weather.

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I stand in front of
these beautiful things

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and curb my appetite for murder.