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Interior Ghazal of a Lousy Girl I am the excess of exuberance, one crummy girl swallowing ruin—all the sweet pork pies, all the Rumford Mill pudding. Rumford, where I cry from lawn sprinklers, where I shovel myself into ice puddles, where the Rumford dog waits daylong for a hug— and on I walk. Rumford is full of the cats I have jammed my foot into. I should stop it now, stop it and begin a lusty recovery. Like how my brother professes wetly on paper doilies. I have no room to do. Things are peanut butter in my stomach, things are Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater in my gullet. Now I open it up— I’m lousy in deed & episode I’m lousy with desire & Rumford. The cats sit in kingdom come with all the Rumford hamsters & all the Rumford nuns. Shit, sorry, I should whistle a lovely recovery. Like how my brother professes tenderly in faxed testimonies. Can do—can do—this girl says the borscht can do. So, to a pastoral: Me down by the Mobil Mart with some peanut butter cups. An island of peat moss, a grove of air hoses, scraps of bitten chiclets, vomit, & the wind through the gas pumps bearing my chatter. Behind a Honda an iceberg drum kicks up: Kingdom come. Bring rum. Come. Sling, strum, come. Stinging crumb, come. 64 Denning mum. Come, my sobbing plum, come. Have you seen the girl with her thumb in the Rumford dam? Or the old woman who lived in a slue? Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, goes my sobbing Rumford plum. I would undo what I’ve undone. 65 ...

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