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twenty-three red ones, two blue, and in no
discernible arrangement, have hung there weeks, now,
past the holiday season, fraying and fading, in
this winter's rainstorms. They'll be taken down,
always have been. They don't get forgotten about:
the choice, arrangement, and handling of them do not
matter, Taste doesn't matter, behind them being
the grief that stays on, alive, under whatever
the rest may be by which living gets done.
There to be visited, on its occasions.
December 18, 1994