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Winter 2005 • Vol. XXVII No. 1 • Poetry |

The Sucker

By Kevin Young

I want to be chewed
like the pencil she used

to dial the cops with—
that would be enough—

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Kevin Young is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems, 1995–2015. His Book of Hours was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Prize; his book The Grey Album won the PEN Open Award, the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. This essay has been adapted from Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News, longlisted for the National Book Award.

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Greening

By Kevin Young

It never ends, the bruise    of being—messy, untimely, the breath of newborns uneven, half    pant, as they find their rhythm, inexact as vengeance. Son,    while you sleep we watch you […]

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