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"Update"

By Cody WalkerPosted Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2006, at 6:10 AM ET

Click here to listen to Cody Walker read this poem.

My latent superpowers, well, they're back:
obliterate a marriage with my mind;
bewitch the president, that lying sack
of—Cody! Take it slow. In time I'll find

—please note, I'm speaking as my therapist—
the equilibrium that time affords.
I've also rerouted (I have a list)
(1) my neural pathways and (2) some fjords.

America's a country for the lonely,
the loony. Whitman said it years ago.
Remember, he could fly and he was only
an editor, a wingéd bearded schmo.

My powers have increased a hundredfold
since you left. Maybe a thousand-, all told.

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Cody Walker is a writer-in-residence at Seattle's Richard Hugo House. His poems have appeared in Shenandoah, Light, and Best New Poets 2005.

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