PoetryRepairShop 03.11:132

PoetryRepairShop 03.11:132

PoetryRepairShop seeks essays and short articles of interest to international poetry readers; AND, we seek reviews of poems and ezines published by poets appearing on PoetryRepairShop.

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KAREN STROMBERG

If I Could Name My Longing, I'd Name You


not as you were,
I long for that too,
but as the one you could have been,
and what that would have made of me,
if you had loved me then. 

I know it's possible
to live up to love-- 
to be more than one is.
I have done it for my children
and their honest eyes. I didn't 
want them knowing how I saw myself:
scared, small, sometimes mean. 
I pretended until 
pretending turned to truth.

No wonder I'm so grateful to them.
No wonder that when I name my longing, 
I name you 
and that tender stretch of memory
that holds you still, 
along with everything 
we didn't know
we could have been.

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PoetryRepairShop 03.12:132

MEGAN WEBSTER
I Want to Go in an Air-Conditioned Box

with a bird of paradise on my breast, he cries, one torrid August afternoon when I greet him at the gate. I start planning, find that Perennial Rose, the florist two blocks down, carries birds of paradise all year round, Heavenly Bearing, the local undertakers, don't chortle at his request for an air-conditioned box. Our customers' comfort is paramount, they claim. Fax in his measurements now. We'll special-order an air-conditioned coffin with a lifetime guarantee -- be ready when the time comes.
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