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Quinn Franzen
At the Corner of St Pauls and St Pauls
The trash magician ties a bag,
whips a fresh one from the roll.
His wrist thrashes it
into a single clear thought.
I want a clarity that kills.
I want to be split by breath.
I want to be pancaked by God.
As a boy I leaned
from a boat my father steered
to watch blank brains of coral
pass in the jelly black water.
I couldn’t blink
as they shivered up,
as they barely cleared
the keel’s slick blade and sunk.
Quinn is an actor, poet, and new poetry editor at Bear Review. His poems can be read in Pleiades, Fugue, The Journal, Barrelhouse, Epiphany, and others. He received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and his acting work can be seen on TV, on- and off-Broadway, and in regional theaters across the country. Quinn lives in Brooklyn.
11.2
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