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This was written off of prompt #16 on Scott Woods’ Live Journal:

“Write a poem about an aspect of a national tragedy that contains:

- no statistics
- no references to other national tragedies
- no newspaper headline references
- no mention of the media, or lack thereof
- a focus on some aspect of the tragedy that no one else talks about much, if at all”.

I wrote about a second-hand story told to me about an act of kindness in the wake of 9/11. This is written in chained lunes. Enjoy.

-Nicole

————————————
clean wet lines
left by the tear tracks
on her face
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Middletown, Ohio

It happened in Middletown.
It could happen in any steel mill town.
Strike.
Men and women
Strike,
And money flies out the window.
Honorable hands that did honorable work
Must find something else honorable
To do.
The town teeters on a paper’s edge
As a second wave sure thing -
ARMCO jobs, my man -
Is poised to be buried under a
Third wave tsunami
That could take out
A small town
Like Middletown.

Written 4/29/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.