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Daniel N. Nelson, two poems


When Pat Boone

bought in a fit

of urgent

love

between an old man and

old machine

a Fairlane sedan

still wore

original mint green

with white trim and matching

interior

chrome horn

metal dash

white walls

from a good year

fifty-seven

after Korea, before Vietnam –

Eisenhower,

when people knew their

place

and Pat Boone

topped the charts

Water

So this 25 year old

dies

and the EMT personnel

transport her

corpse

down the corridor

to the elevator

not quite to the

trash bin

but very close.

she decided to

die

by drowning

in her bathtub.

a few days ago

with San Pellegrino in hand

she had smiled in the lobby;

i pushed the button for

our floor.

 

Daniel N. Nelson is an international consultant based in Alexandria, VA. He studied at the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminar and has published, in addition to over twenty volumes on matters related to international politics, a collection of poems: Performance (Wombat Press, Nova Scotia, 1994).


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