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2021 Academy of American Poets Prize

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Clot

by Cole Depuy

imagine her cheating on you then think you rather she did on the coffee table sitsa green moth you pinch its wings legs running on air you don't trust survival out in the rain like a beggar the ghost of your grandma's brother who died before she was born I swear I was there grandma says describingher mother’s scream wide as a siren her father carrying a water-logged boy like firewood laying him beside her grandma eyes the heater vents like dry gills that can't inhale either wear socks you tell her or freeze to deathit would take days for your flesh to cool you think when the heater stops wires pang Newton's Cradle you resume on wallpaper her cold feet she says love is for theego she means this in a good way you don't want another mother if rain drops really grow as they fall how much is left to do anyway?

This poem originally appeared in The Summerset Review.

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