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Carlo Matos

It's Best Not to Interrupt Her Experiments

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My wife is at the back of the house
wearing a ski mask,
attempting a break-in.
She will eventually succeed
(no need to worry)
and lay the mask—
sweat-through and moist—
on the end table.
Another night of sleep earned:
no glory but purpose.


It's Best Not to Interrupt His Experiments

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There are stones in the freezer
and a recipe for shampoo, Gatorade and construction paper
on the fridge.
The tub overflows with bubble wrap—
a complete and intact fossil of a bubble bath—
a salt water mark.
Tonight he will eat Mommy and Daddy,
swallowing them whole,
so they will always be together
in his belly.


It's Best Not to Interrupt His Experiments

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Charlie Brown was the tiny, bigheaded
center of their world.
Without him, there were no orbits.
He was the only defense against the Big Freeze.
So, he took it.
What choice did he have?
He had, after all, brought them together against all odds—
the Big Crunch, instead.
Children surrounded by creatures mainly legs and big hands
with their sad, bodiless way of speaking—
the infamous wah, wah, wah sound.
A guitar could do that much.
And poor Charlie Brown
(the butt of everyone's jokes)
never even getting to kick that football,
a fact that made Schultz himself tear up before he died.
Every now and again,
what rises from the swamp
is desperate to blaze into being
once the slime has been washed off.


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