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  • When Did We First
  • Alice Friman (bio)

entertain the notionall this was made for us?In what B.C. was that?And who was the thinkerwho chewed his nailsdown to the bloody quick,shunning his fieldsand his best brown goatto come up with whatevery four-foot, crawly,leafy thing knows better?

What teeth-shatteringcold coerced him—rolled up in his nightly rag—to seek such consolation?

Surely he knew nothingof us, our smatteringof smarts: smart phones,smart alecks, smart asses,smart bombs, and how—thanks to mischief, mayhem,and Michelangelo—we swallowed his line,happy to agree with him.Even the skinny kid,his arm around his girl,walking the back lanein this forsaken town,thinks his pounding heartthe drumbeat of this world. [End Page 82]

Never mind the daisies’argument with Coke cansand orange peels ragingin the ditch, and overheadthe crows who recognizehuman faces—so they say—and remember. [End Page 83]

Alice Friman

alice friman’s latest collection is The View from Saturn. Her previous collection, Vinculum, won the 2012 Georgia Author of the Year Award in Poetry. She won a 2012 Pushcart Prize and is included in Best American Poetry 2009. She is poet in residence at Georgia College, in Milledgeville.

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