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(This is an excerpt—click on the title to view the full piece)

Cancer
 
We try to be quiet.
But our crockery is always boiling over and rarely
do we think of the dark behind the darkness.

 

Girls Not Wanted
 
The number he gave us was to the pound,
where unwanted dogs wait for death,
resting on arthritic haunches.

 

Coconut
 
Jonathan used his khukri for the first time in years
to open up the coconut