All the Paper
in My Life
By Eve Wood
We are born into paper—
Our lives bookended in signatures,
A certificate
To prove you exist
And another to prove you
Do not, each day teeming
With permits, credentials
For entry and forms to depart,
Passports, agendas,
Records of evidence and
Evidence of nothing
But paper, reams of it,
A million loose leafed sheets
Let go on the wind, snippets
From diaries and highly classified
Lies, love letters and all
The annulments of love
Floating suddenly over the embankment
After the explosion
That leaves you
Naked and alive.
Holding Pattern
By John Tottenham
She demanded to be held.
So I held her.
She collapsed lifelessly into my arms
and remained there,
while I lay there, with mind elsewhere,
wondering how much longer
I was supposed to hold her for.
After what seemed like a long time,
I gently disengaged myself
and got out of the bed.
She looked coldly up at me from the pillow.
She said that she would find somebody else:
somebody who would want to hold her
for two hours
after an act of love
that lasted two minutes.
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