SUMMER SUIT SWALLOW Pete Mason
For Cody
My friend takes solace in his headless shadow, when the fire is all hum and snowflake rain. He says, it’s why he wears worm-drink like a summer suit when he swallows.
He says, we are like 14 hymns caught in the throat of our own traffic- jam—all that song getting babble mixed, and beating its way out like prison riot, because Holy is best understood with conviction.
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SHOOT TO KILL Howie Good
A 9-year-old girl wearing a black-and-white Halloween costume was shot in the shoulder by a relative who mistook her for a skunk. If you are sufficiently enraged, determined, or intoxicated, you can simply shrug off the psychological effects of being shot. Wikipedia includes a list of celebrities who were shot and lived. Being shot isn’t like in the movies. Ever see High Sierra? How about Reservoir Dogs? Mr. Orange was shot in the gut, if I remember rightly. About 46 percent of all gunshot wounds are fatal. My mother went in for heart surgery one day and never came out.
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