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by Loretta Tobin
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What used to be a fence
lay on the ground, entwined
with green vines and white flowers
so small you could overlook them,
weeds really. And contained
within that ruined border,
small piles of rocks, once stacked,
now bowled over by time,
once in neat rows, now a dismembered
puzzle. Here and there pieces of wood
chiseled with eroding symbols,
a life, beginning and end,
in a language I can’t read.
Body, bones, dust.
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Loretta Tobin, born and raised in North Dakota, graduated from Minnesota State University—Moorhead with a B.S.Ed. She served as the NMCB 18 admin chief when they mobilized to Al Asad, Iraq. Now retired from the Navy Reserve and the City of Everett, she lives in Everett, Washington. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: As You Were, Line of Advance, The Deadly Writers Patrol and New Plains Review. Her poems are anthologized in: Willowdown Books 2020 anthology: Poems from the Lockdown, Our Deepest Calling, and Solstice: Light and Dark of the Salish Sea.
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