JOANNA KUROWSKA

The Appraisal

In a one-store warehouse, burly
Latino boys in Chicago Cubs
T-shirts, toss around
storage cartons

A thin-lipped city clerk talks about
poetry—a welcome break in his
daily routine. Poets
are harmless

but for one who has just finished
his earthly task. His corpse
lay seven days before
it was found.

The clerk has a problem…

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