Michael J. Noble

MICHAEL NOBLE is working on a Ph.D. in English Literature at the Univer￾sity of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette. He is the 1995-96 recipient of the Voorhies Creative Writing Award.

Bean Counting

Articles/Essays – Volume 26, No. 4

She adds up all the names 
people have given her over the years: 
‘Vain, difficult, cold.” 
Someone once told her that 

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Hemmed In

Articles/Essays – Volume 28, No. 4

Above, the divorcee 
with the baggy eyes and bleached hair
draws an evening bath. 
The dull pat of bare feet 

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By Extension

Articles/Essays – Volume 29, No. 3

He blisters his hand on the iron she forgot to unplug,
investigates every outlet, detects exactly three more
potential fire hazards, bandages himself 
in the prescribed method. She is not a cautious woman.

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Shorn

Articles/Essays – Volume 30, No. 1

Locking the door to the bath, 
opens the collar of the shirt, 
raises chin, fingers buttons 
from their holes, lengthens torso,
molts like a snake. 

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The Lighthouse Bookstore

Articles/Essays – Volume 30, No. 1

Halfway between here and Oregon, the Lighthouse Bookstore
opens along some residential street we browse unwittingly
when reading after dark, where the words and road signs
blur and the sky clouds up and thunders. 

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