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Henry Stimpson’s poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Rolling Stone, Delmarva Review, Mad River Review, Aethlon, The MacGuffin, The Aurorean, Lighten Up Online, Common Ground Review, California Quarterly, Asses of Parnassus, Bluepepper, The Boston Phoenix, Muddy River Poetry Review, Snakeskinpoetry, Atlanta Review, On the Seawall and others. A Massachusetts resident, he also writes creative nonfiction and hopes to see a Boston Celtics championship soon.

The Mad Knotty Piner

Henry Stimpson

nailed up knotty pine panels
in cabins all over New Hampshire,
I told my little cousin one night
in our dim rented cottage.

Look, I said, each dark knot
marks a dead child’s soul!
Beside those staring eyes,
Karen drifted into haunted sleep.

In her 50s, alone,
she wrestles with the cancer
that will pinch her soul
into a dark knot soon.

— Henry Stimpson

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