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Cheryl Loetscher

As the Mind Clears

Grief being stubborn, everything goes to Goodwill but these leather-lined clogs, red-heeled work socks worn to the end and photo albums, not divided five ways, of leathery Uncles born to the soil, hoeing Arkansas beans; ghosts of old chums playing rough in unpopulated landscapes; and your Mother frying pork-belly cabbage, garlic buttering Southern taste buds: all signs of you still loose in our world.

dusty spices
arranged in neat rows
famished for words