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Ethan Allen

Brick and mortar

I wonder about your shoes

Did you save for them

Bit a fingernail, clicked purchase

Were they a present from your mom

Practical, wink wink


Sticks lying on your back

And burning on your skin like pins all the way down

Here’s the foundation of the building

I can feel it even on the third floor

I can feel it through every beam and all the tributaries

That flow with capillaries

Round my bones with six shackles

It’s always folding six times

Creasing the paper with growing intensity and spilling out

Oh to be in it

Oh to not linger on the cusp


I think I’m eyeing you from the stoop

But I can’t be sure

Sure, I like the curve and the muscle but

What’s in it for me?

A bit of attention from an otherwise indifferent source?

I’ll draw on you

For comfort

When there is only scaffolding propped up

My pen can only circle down. I’ve learned new rhythms

That only trickle down economics finds

Reliably sourced.

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