Category: Poems

The Dictionary

              The Dictionary In Tularosa school, first or secondgrade. I was in the bathroom andgot called to the principal’s officewhere I was worried I wouldbe punished for some infraction.Instead, the principal presentedme with a dictionary. He had seenme carrying an old battered onearound the school—my early loveof knowledge and words—and gaveme the signed dictionary. […]

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Graveyard Chicken

    Graveyard Chicken In Lemitar, New Mexico we boys played onegame to test one another’s braveryin the dilapidated graveyard nextdoor to the school with its chipped,hard to decipher tombstones andleaning, wooden crosses.A boy had to stick his arm down into one of the gopher holesinundating the graveyard’s mesquite and tumble weed-adorned surfacebecause he had been “dared”and […]

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Masks

MASKS We all wear them— different ones for disparate occasions to avoid feeling truly naked. We don one to show to loved ones maybe it’s a smiling mask but not always. We’ve another for the various people we work with; some see one mask others another. Some feel they see beneath our mask; others may […]

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