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Great Little Death Wish Thing

Arlene Naganawa Poetry

We wish, just a bit, for the curve in the mountain highway,
the falling beam, the knife slipped in under the sheet.

Our little death dream, humming, hands in its pockets,
toes scuffling the gravel road in the middle of night

where we wish we could lie down under the Mississippi
moon and feel the river flow right over. Don’t you think

it’s the best—the whirlpool, the cradle of shadows
on the hottest day and you so parched you could die?

About Arlene Naganawa
Arlene Naganawa is the author of three chapbooks: Private Graveyard (Gribble Press), The Scarecrow Bride (Red Bird Chapbooks), and The Ark and the Bear (Floating Bridge Press). Her poems have appeared in various publications, including Caketrain, Crab Orchard Review, Pontoon, Cider Press Review, Washington 129, All the Sins, and others. She lives in Seattle.

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