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Say Something
about Child’s Play

by Chris Abani

The soldier asks the boy: Choose which
do I cleave? Your right arm or left?
The boy, ten, maybe nine, says: Neither,
or when I play, like a bird with a broken wing
I will smudge the line of the hopscotch
square, let the darkness in.

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Poem of the WeekChris Abani

Chris Abani has received the PEN USA Freedom to Write Award, the Prince Claus Award, a California Book Award, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of California–Riverside.


2009 BEST OF THE
NET FINALIST
Poems of the Week: 2008–2009

Poems of the Week: 2008–2009

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