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Syntax Issue 10
Denver Syntax
{rather than read another word}
  michael bazzett


Perhaps you could loosen your self within your skin.

After all, you’ve worn it
since childhood’s earliest onset.

No wonder it’s grown tight. Soften the muscles around

the eyes and there in your knotted
jaw unclench what’s held by habit.

There is no need to talk. Let your tongue grow fat.
Listening can be a balm. Those lines in your head

are still forming, and not of their own accord: we

share the tools that deepen them: emotion, repetition,
emotion, repetition, and the requisite mouthfuls of air.