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Left to Their Own Devices

                                                                                                        by Joan Pond

Men in her life were like the hamsters
she’d had as a child.
Left too long by a radiator,
they cooked.
Or, as the one she took,
limp,
from his shoe-box house;
he’d given up the ghost
when he couldn’t breathe.
It wasn’t easy remembering to give them
water and rodent feed.
Returning from school,
their bodies as lumps of clay;
where she’d left them in cages
to play with sharp objects.
Leslie would say,
“Men left to their own devices,
were like the hamsters
she’d had as a child.”

                                                     Copyright © 1999 by Joan Pond, All rights reserved
                              Contact Joan at boodles1@aol.com

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