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Maureen Thorson: Otter Pop Blues

May 12, 2011 by PBQ

Mirrors in mirrors, in mirrors, in mirrors: bitter diminution.
The rest of the material is a jaundiced blob of colors,
water sweating from a plastic sleeve, barely remembered
candy necklaces softening in the deep waters

of summer pool parties. A single luna moth taking refuge
in the shadow of the changing room’s concrete overhang.
Then the walk home along the roadside, sucking
on pixy-stix as long as our arms. Everything wide

and indulgent. But were things really taller then? No—
not the totem trunks of the maple trees, not the squirrel
that stole your jelly sandwich. My belief in the eminent
and humid refusal of today’s popsicle to taste as good

as its ancestors is just nostalgic exaggeration. The only
bigger thing back then was the diving board, unfocused
beneath our knees, its distance to the splash atremble
with things we’d yet to grow used to, redo, forget, redo.

Filed Under: Contributors 84, Issue 84, Poetry, Poetry 84 Tagged With: Contributors 84, Maureen Thorson, Poetry, Poetry 84

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