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Lumbar Complaints Summer of the sickbed, and all the blowzy flowers Bloom by neglect, just as Nature intended. Backbone, you’ve let me down again, this time so deep The taproot knocks against the bottom of my blood. I’m trying to outwit the pain. I’m trying to keep so still It can’t find me, even in the chafing places, in the acid veins. Hustle of drugs on my dry tongue: they’ve got me so stopped up I’ll need an enema of warm milk and molasses. Every sour spoonful, every sly pill makes me feel Woozy and half mad, like a man harassed by butterflies. And no lectures, please, no uplift. Let me sleep In my injured skin, another wasted season gone to seed. • • • 46 ...

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