Shooting the Rat: Stories and Poems by Outstanding High School Writers Book

	Shooting the Rat	17
	Pears of the World	21
	On the Corner of Fulton and Liberty	22
	Driving Home at Night After Picking Up the Milk	23
	1920	24
	Poem at a Quarter to Six	25
	Windsock	26
	A 1950s. Televised A-Bomb Drill Aired for Educational Purposes	27
	In the Girls' Dressing Room Before the Gulling of Beatrice Scene in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing	29
	Fida Fida Fida Fida	31
	Farmacy	32
	Iconography	33
	The Twist of Her Head	34
	Image Retention	35
	Destination	37
	During This Movie	38
	Vivian	39
	Attire	40
	Four Haiku: Nora/Winter Rocks	41
	Three Poems: Shoes/Watermelon/Moon	42
	Ode to the Stove	43
	Cold Burn	44
	Poulsbo	50
	Faculty Christmas Party at Webster Middle School	51
	Perception	52
	Field	53
	Outcrop	54
	A Poem in the Wave	55
	Residential Whiskey in Hand	56
	Morning Run	57
	The Bicyclers	58
	Schuylkill Valley Park	59
	Casey	60
	Lemonade	63
	Missile	64
	Journey	65
	East Jordan	66
	Considerations	67
	Pineapple Days of Sunshine	69
	The Beginning	70
	Revelation	71
	I Lose Constellations in Foreign Cities	72
	The End of Our Manifest Destinies	73
	Bliss	75
	This Day Was a Poem	76
	The Original Gaither Farmhouse	78
	The Pistachio Dress	80
	Montana Storm	82
	After Rumi	83
	Amy	84
	Two-Dollar Bills	85
	The Revolution Will Not Be Televised	87
	Big Bang	89
	There is Water Here That Burns	90
	Ma Melts Things, Has an Orgasm	91
	Prometheus at Coney Island	92
	High Way	94
	So Natural	95
	As the Child Prodigy Grows Up	96
	Brambles	98
	The Way She Burned	99
	Rain	103
	Aeneas Leaving His Dido	104
	Seven Veils	107
	Regal Concubine	109
	4.5.199-235 [Exeunt Ophelia and Gertrude]	110
	Queen of Hearts	112
	Letter from the Artist	113
	Picasso's Painting	114
	Picasso Was a Fly	115
	The Voice of Robert Desnos	116
	(French) Public Transit	118
	Mishima on a Plate	119
	In My Grandmother's House	123
	Nowhere	124
	In My Uncle's Kitchen	129
	Mother's Ritual	130
	The Duel	131
	Regard to My Parents' Weakness	132
	Nine Months Before September 4, 1977	133
	What Protects	134
	To My Father	135
	Sage	136
	Why I Didn't Visit the Doctor's Office	138
	Monsoon	139
	In the Basement	141
	Rental	142
	Country	143
	North Wind Testament	145
	Phone Booth, 10 p.m	146
	Aftermath	147
	Is Burning	148
	Finding the Body	150
	Dreaming Grandfather's Funeral	151
	Renascence	152
	Marvin	153
	Dear Tony	155
	AIDS	156
	Jewels	157
	The Shalimar Diner	161
	Welcome	165
	Fourteen	166
	Summer at Brooke's	167
	Were There Children?	168
	Morning Thoughts	169
	Momentary Mastication	170
	The Winter of My Life	171
	Virgin Rhapsody: Pearls	172
	Inside the City	177
	Passage	179
	Stranger	180
	Revelation	181
	Lemons	182
	Headlights	183
	One More Page in Insincerity	184
	Finding the Sky	185
	Four Pieces of Transition	188
	When the Woman Is Contemporary, and the Kitchen Belongs to Someone Else	190
	Perfect Pitch	191
	Tory Sitting on a Couch in a Coffee Shop on the Corner of Ninth Street and Avenue A	192
	Poised	194
	Dead Moths	195
	Bright Snow Cold	197
	Chestnut	198
	Millstone	200
	Core	201
	Petal	202
	I Had to Stop	203
	Witch	205
	Jake	212
	Assembling Bodies	213
	Boxing the Female	214
	Foot Fire Burn Dance	216
	Figure It Out	219
	Sex	220
	The Glimmerer	221
	Heat	222
	A Hustler Leaves at Dawn	223
	Rain	224
	Porn	225
	Crush	231
	Sunday Night	232
	There Is a Girl in the Cafeteria	233
	Kite	234
	Fingerprints	235
	Cold	236
	Nc17	237
	The Octopus	238
	For Dan	239
	After She Was a Girl	240
	Summer Crush	241
	Circuitry	242
	Our Mercurial Bodies Make Their Own Grief	243
	Rib	245
	The Spoon	246
	Marrow	247
	Leave-Taking	248
	Letter to a Ghetto Boy Three Thousand Miles Away	249
	Confessions from Gilcrease	250
	Three Notes on a Kitchen Table	251
	Serendipity, I Thought	252
	Picayunes	253
	Youthful Gods Flirting	254
	The First Time	256
	Unearned Chance	257
	Laundry Day	258
	Expert	260
	Wrist	261
	Ginger Ale	262
	Driving Miss Daisy: PG13	263
	The Zipper	264
	Notes on Contributors	265