LADEANA MULLINIX

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Cellar of the Heart

On dark days 

we might 

go to the cellar 

to visit 

our old pains—  

harmless now 

like dusty quarts  

of green beans with 

a good snake’s skin 

wrapped around, and 

poke a few, offer a little guilt,  

see if anything moves.

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LADEANA MULLINIX is a retired occupational therapist. She has had poems and essays in Midwest Quarterly, Slant, Medicine and Meaning, and Friends Journal, a Quaker publication.

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