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Elegy for a Puritan Conscience, by Alan Dugan



He's one of my new favorites, and this bitter little pill shows what he does best, afflict the comfortable. I wish I'd been able to meet him.




I closed my ears with stinging bugs
and sewed my eyelids shut
but heard a sucking at the dugs
and heard my parents rut.


I locked my jaw with rusty nails
and cured my tongue in lime
but ate and drank in garbage pails
and said these words of crime.


I crushed my scrotum with two stones
and drew my penis in
 but felt your wound expect its own
and fell in love with sin.

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