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paper clip

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often has
a tough time
keeping things together,
but considering the alternatives -
the violence
of the staple gun
punching
holes
in sheets of paper -
it seems so civilized
so correct
even... sensual -
the casual clinging
under a canopy
of twisted steel,
naked to the world
and to one another.
there is the sense
that we could wrestle free
of its fragile hold,
but we are willing captives -
chosen,
collated -
we belong together.


Paul David Mena
5 August, 1996
Acton, MA

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