Amy Beeder Poems

Agony the wax-white man in spasm, arched
arms tight as flightless wings, rigid fists on ribs
in Bell's famous painting Opisthotonus. This
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I see you shuffle up Washington Street
whenever I am driving much too fast:
you, chub & bug-eyed, jaw like a loaf
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Girl on a heap of street sweepings high
as a pyre, laid on snarled wire & dented rim.
Girl set down among the wrung-out hides.
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Bewildered Saint of the curse, bulbous
& profane, I invoke you against this Nest
Of Lice & Vipers: O volcanic Captain, I implore you, pour
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Offer your usual posy of goatheads. Proffer
sharp garlands of thistle & Incas' thin down;
of squash bugs strung on blighted stems; send
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the plates are broken after just one meal:
plates that mimic lily pads or horseshoe crabs,
swifts' wings,
golden koi, whirlpools, blowholes in rictus:
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