Richard Epstein
Storyville
Just once? Upon a hundred million times
he woke and learned to speak and knocked her up
and watched her die and ran away and hid.
Each branch of this bears twigs, and each twig flowers.
The children live. The wife runs off. She finds
a man who loves her less and turns her out
to bus the tables of a mining town.
He makes a million - somethings. Dollars. Pails.
He trades the cow for beans. He plants the beans
and learns he loved her more than provender.
But it's too late. She's dead. Or wiping tables.
Or on her way to Jacksonville, where God
has called her to be Sister Angeline.
In one small blossom he is deaf and dumb
and sees his town in black and white reversed.
He finds her anyway. They stay. They live
ever after, just off Sueño Street.
he woke and learned to speak and knocked her up
and watched her die and ran away and hid.
Each branch of this bears twigs, and each twig flowers.
The children live. The wife runs off. She finds
a man who loves her less and turns her out
to bus the tables of a mining town.
He makes a million - somethings. Dollars. Pails.
He trades the cow for beans. He plants the beans
and learns he loved her more than provender.
But it's too late. She's dead. Or wiping tables.
Or on her way to Jacksonville, where God
has called her to be Sister Angeline.
In one small blossom he is deaf and dumb
and sees his town in black and white reversed.
He finds her anyway. They stay. They live
ever after, just off Sueño Street.
Richard Epstein frequently appeared in Staple under the old regime. He lives in Denver, Colorado.His son, having learned nothing from his father's experience, is pursuing graduate degrees in English
Lit.
Lit.
Page(s) 27
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- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
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- Shearsman
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- Staple
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- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
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