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      June 5, 2019Elroy Trains the Stock BoyLarina Warnock

      We don’t sell produce that’s pock-marked, bruised,
      wilted, or otherwise unusable by the wealthier families
      in town. That’s right, son, we throw it all out.
      If it’s remotely edible, though, we don’t throw
      it in with the rotten or moldy stuff. There’s a bucket
      over there for the produce we share with the bag man.
      I forgot that you’re new in town. I’ll tell the story,
      but you should sit down, and be prepared for a doozy
      of a tale. The bag man, he’s this town’s biggest failure,
      and all of us try to make up for it in our way.
      His name is Dr. Marcus Rivane and he had an office
      two blocks south of Main where he practiced
      pediatrics for seven years. He was doing his rounds
      at the hospital, checking on my daughter and all
      her peers after the Asian flu came through.
      The sheriff was there, too, with his little boy,
      and Captain Roy and folks from all around.
      When the siren sounded, every volunteer
      firefighter in town was preoccupied
      with their own sad life, myself included.
      We were slow to the station and slower still
      to the little house on the hill on the county line.
      Dr. Rivane arrived just in time for us to pull
      the charred remains of his wife and child
      from smoking embers and scattered flames.
      He saw the townsfolk through the Asian flu,
      then disappeared. Everyone around here
      figured he’d moved on for good, and he probably
      should’ve, but after a couple of months, he showed
      up all dressed in plastic bags. None of us will
      ever, ever forget that. Oh, we tried to take
      him in like good neighbors and good friends
      would do, but Dr. Rivane doesn’t remember
      his own name, much less the lives he saved
      or the lives we lost while he did. We keep
      expecting him to wake up one day, but meantime
      you make sure you put that bucket out each night.
      I can’t ever make things right, but I’ve got this
      one thing that Marcus’ll take. For my little girl’s
      sake, I’ll pay the rest of my life in lettuce,
      pray the rest of my life over kale.

      from #63 - Spring 2019

      Larina Warnock

      “I am currently working on a collection of persona poems titled Canterbury Flats. I started this collection because I was trying to understand my attachment to the country even though I’ve never really ‘fit’ there. As I continue writing persona poems, I realize that it also forces me to empathize with people whose belief systems are very different from my own. Persona poems, written carefully, make us more human.”