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Still-life
I think love is not this flower.
You sing at night through our teeth.
Our mouths do not move. If I want
a pumpkin, I will have a pumpkin.
It is raining. You are not wet
because you are inside. Looking up
you notice there is no
ceiling, only poems about ceilings.
If I want a pumpkin, I will
have a mirror to reflect all pumpkins.
It is raining inside the poem.
The poet has no control over this.
The bamboo withers. The poet
has no control over that either.
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Nick Moudry wrote this poem in the fall of 2002. He was in graduate school at the time and lived with the poet Eric Baus in an old house in Northampton, MA. Eric went to Whole Foods every day and bought lots of fresh produce, half of which would rot in a bowl on the kitchen table. Nick did much of his writing at the same kitchen table. He wrote several poems about rotting food that year. Now Nick lives in Philadelphia and works at Temple University. He is contractually obligated to state that he received a 2008 literature fellowship fromthe Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
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