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Matthew Lippman is the author the poetry collections American Chew, winner of the Burnside Review Book Prize; Monkey Bars; and The New Year of Yellow, winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize. He is also the recipient of the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize and the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Prize in Poetry. Born in New York City, he lives in Boston with his wife and two daughters.

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The Territory of Being Beautiful

by Matthew Lippman
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Territories mean nothing when you have a fence.
Someone will always come with her plow and crush the sucker.
Sometimes a bird will show up in his backhoe
and level the chain link.
Between me and the sky right now
is a screen door and a whole mess of wind.

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