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Linked poems kill ignorance.

Linked poems kill ignorance

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Numb Bird

At age fourteen
I had a father
and then I didn’t

dead at forty-seven
airplane crash
just like that.

My name was
on his tombstone and
I could never be alone
under that anointed stone

and there was not a single
bone in my mind that didn’t crave
a loud guffaw while all the quiet people
crowded the incense-reeking church from

the icy howl outside where soldiers stood
and made my mother wail and wonder why

she had a son but not a man among us who
could measure up and dead became my pastime

as I grew frolicsome another thirty-three years
until at forty-seven stone alone I could not die anymore –

I just didn’t have the strength.

An when an angel’s wing de-iced,
I took hold of gossamer, for the flight of my life.

Dave Read

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