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Wednesday, August 01, 2007

SONG IN THE FIFTH YEAR

by Margaret Ricketts


We had demos. We chalked the
bathtub. We spread our legs at
the airport. We tried to shrink our
prior notions of privacy. We moved
to Washington and saw the apertures of death.
plain as a sewer cover. We never discussed it,
the way you ignore a dead roadside dog.
We nagged our sons
about their GPAs. We applied marking
pens to posterboard, We listened to the
resistance, futile, bare
palms beating on plastic drums.


Margaret Ricketts has studied writing at the Fine Arts Work Center and the University of Kentucky.