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Keetje Kuipers is the author of the poetry collections Beautiful in the Mouth and The Keys to the Jail. In addition, her poems have appeared in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. She earned her MFA at the University of Oregon and is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow. Kuipers lives on an island in the Puget Sound with her wife and daughter.

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Self-Care at the Playground

by Keetje Kuipers
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The sidewalk grows a golden fur

of fallen leaves, and on the swings
in the park, a woman sounds


an off-key minor chord, her body


participating in a kind of joy
uncomfortable for the rest of us.
People on couch
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