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Eleven-Letter Word
Astraphobia trickles from my fist in Scrabble tiles:
this morbid fear of lighting and of storms
she swears isn’t a real word.
In it her trap disappears like the wild clamor
of storms that’s snuffed out by the music
of our old grand piano.
Outside electrocuted trees streak in purple;
giant tongues spill from oak trunks
bullied into opening.
There’s a formula, so I’m told, to determine
how far away the lightning is, if only I’d listen
to its thunder and count.
Count is all I do when the piano stops playing,
my sister fed up with the noise now
settles the lid over its chest.
Winds howl and shake our eaves; they’d fallen
asleep, perhaps, and were missing the joy
of an eight-year-old boy cringing.
Real boys don’t have such fears, so I’m told
in a faraway voice that sputters like squirt guns
I buy for quarters at the store.
As I clutch the legs of our piano I listen
to the music it played earlier but it was only rain
and now my sister stuttering
for said rain to stop, something about it causing her
to speak that way, a condition, so I’m told,
which doesn’t have a name.
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| Rumit Pancholi has received a BA in English from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame. He has had poems published in Harpur Palate, Iron Horse Literary Review, Gulf Stream, and Painted Bride Quarterly. |
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Date of Publication: 19 Oct 2008 |
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