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Marsha Truman Cooper is a poet and the author of the chapbook A Knot of Worms. She was awarded first prize in the New Letters Literary Awards competition for poetry, and she also received the Bernice Slote Poetry Award. A native of California, Cooper lives with her husband in Goleta.

Photograph by Jim Pendergast.

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The Abandoned Flying Horse Carousel, 1879

by Marsha Truman Cooper
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When the sword swallower and official
handyman eloped with a soapy
professional bubble blower, the clowns
voted unanimously to take the carnival
on to its next engagement without
removing the carousel from where
it stood in a small town in Rhode Island.

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