blackbirdonline journalFall 2009  Vol. 8  No. 2
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GERALD STERN

I

                              XXXIII
                                                                      And he predicts the sale of body parts
                              behind the barbed wire fences, and there’s one thing
                              he’s sure of, if there’s money enough and the barbs
                              are rusty enough the ones outside will live
                              till fifty maybe and the ones on top of the
golf                        little knolls and fiber holes till maybe
                              a hundred and twenty, that’s the toast in the red-brick
                              glass-bound dining room the end table
                              by the unused fireplace, a bottle of schnapps
                              and three or four of them left for they are greedy,
                              and that was the toast they made before swimming over,
                              and there will be a difference between the chickens,
                              not to mention the corn and the creamed spinach,
                              not to mention the cushions they use and how
                              they look at one another and what they flee from.

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