POETRY

Absence, Opera, Beans, Dreams

A selection of verses from new collections.

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Sunday, April 20, 2008

In the Junk Store

A small, straw basket

Full of medals

From good old wars

No one recalls.

I flipped one over

To feel the pin

That once pierced

The hero's swelling chest.

Charles Simic from "That Little Something" (Harcourt, $23)

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