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40 What Passes for Optimism at MacArthur Park Beside the concrete pond, small children fish for nothing. This is all it costs to wish: a yard of yarn, a crooked stick. They cast their paper cups as if they might outlast hunger, as if a minnow might appear from muck and shoes and empty cans of beer. We watch them scoop up all the trash that floats. We watch the lovers on their paddle boats like swans, like swans! the little children holler. We have our picture taken for a dollar. While on the gravel path the pigeons scatter for crumbs, their tiny feet a kind of chatter so empty and so full of soft demands that everyone, not listening, understands. ...

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