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    • Fall | 2012 Reading
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MEGHANN PLUNKETT

Water


1. 
You can only live as fast
as the water around you,

he tells me with five
knuckles sad around his stout.

He says this and I refuse
to doubt him, convinced already

that the pupil-colored river,
barely breathing out the window,

is responsible for his glacial
speed and the lack of endings

to his stories. He tells me
he is colorblind, "for an Irishman"

he adds, which means he can't see
any shade but the color green– 

and everything, he laughs, looks
to be clover-colored to him everything
seems green enough to grow.

2.
Sometimes
I kill a houseplant 
on purpose
out of spite

I let it sit on my table
ignoring it for days

and just as the leaves
begin to curl in

on themselves
just as they begin

to parch, begin to husk
and petrify

I sit next to them
with a pitcher full of water

I drink glass after glass
after glass.

3. 
My grandmother keeps 
her Holy Water by the stove,
on the dresser, by the soap dish,
mixed into the spray bottle
she uses to reprimand the cat.

It is the final ingredient
to every meal she cooks.

She dabs it behind her ears.

4.
There could be, in my mind,
a breed
of superstitious people
who insist
on having plastic surgery
of the palms
in order to make their life
line longer.
These people do not shake hands,
and they never do the dishes,
afraid the water
might wrinkle their childhood.
  


45   The Paris-American

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Meghann Plunkett is a New York City based writer and performer. Her work has been published in national and international literary magazines including Simon & Schuster’s new anthology, Chours. She is a co-founder, producer and performer for the show KissPunchPoem: an official selection at the Chicago Improv Festival, the New York City Poetry Festival, the Hawaii Improv Festival and the Boston Comedy Arts Festival. The show has also been featured at The Encyclopedia Show and The Green Mill in Chicago. She invites you to The Magnet Theater in New York City, every Saturday at 9pm.


   
   Next week's poet:

 Malachi Black
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