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  • Intransitive
  • Earl Maxwell Coleman (bio)

Zeke was a model jailer, Taking all two hundred Sixty pounds in all, A hillsman Knowing fewer than Eight thousand words (His thick lips closed on them, The precious, compact meat of them.) Club nodded like a howdy-do, Black ferret eyes went right Just five degrees, men paced Along the cage’s corridors— Barter, slop pail, Outside dreams, suspension shelves.

Zeke totalled Number 4872 On Tuesday afternoon. Five heavy-duty screws Pulled Zeke away and off But bladder, kidneys, Spleen, nine joints, Six vertebrae, broke cranium And capsized lung Made Number 4872 Unreconstructible.

None knew what started it Or why once launched It took the turn it did. When Zeke was interviewed The court got sixty of his Priceless words, outside his yes and no Which was the bulk of them. [End Page 679]

Some said the system was at fault, That animals had charge of animals. Some urged a greater force, some less. It seemed to one reporter That vocabulary was at fault, or lack of it, That a salt and peppering of added words To Zeke’s slim lexicon Could have prevented it, That words, sometimes a single word Of no specific length or syllables, Can change the isotherm, Afford a latitude Of unimaginable depth.

Earl Maxwell Coleman

Earl Maxwell Coleman lives in New Jersey.

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