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Murder
- University of Arkansas Press
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P H I L I P A P P L E M A N Murder Who was it standing there while you slept? There’s a taste on the tip of the tongue like bitter almonds, and off in the corner of the eye someone is slipping into dusk at the edge of the room, and something without a face is chasing you through the woods, your legs rooted like stumps, your screaming strangled to whimpers, and you know in the lump of your heart that the faceless thing is yourself, it is man and wife slamming doors, in the dregs of every cup a trace of arsenicit is rage at the Boss, feeling in the palm of the hand the thump of lead pipeit is the fury of neighbors, the tang of gunpowder, smell of quicklime eating flesh: you breathe it in with the morning coffee, the pleasant drone of mowing lawns, in every blade of grass the open razor . . . The 1970s ❚ 95 You wrench yourself out of nightmare and open your eyes in time to see the bludgeon crashing down and the face above it, roaring with your laughter. 96 ❚ The 1970s ...