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Dancer, poet, Karen Klein founded teXtmoVes, a collaborative of poets/dancers/ choreographers who perform together and independently, most recently at Urbanity Central, Boston. Her haiku have been published nationally, internationally, and anthologized. Her poems have been printed in The Cape Cod Poetry Review, Pudding Magazine, The Comstock Review, SLANT, The Somerville Times, online in The Drunken Boat, Fusion Magazine, read as Sunday Poet on Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene, WCAI Poetry Sunday, and Poet-to-Poet interview with Doug Holder, Somerville Cable TV. A member of Steeple Street Poets, she is compiling her first chapbook.

Karen Klein

NAPS

My friend told me the difference

between grown-ups and kids.

Grown-ups like to take naps.

Kids don’t.

I’m a grown-up.

I don’t like to take naps.

I’m afraid of them.

It’s not a fear of putting

my sleep cycle out of order.

It’s older, deeper.

I don’t remember my exact age

when it happens, probably adolescence.

I remember my bedroom.

I fell asleep during the afternoon.

When I awoke, it was night.

To say it was terrifying,

or to say I was in terror

implies that I was thinking.

I wasn’t thinking.

It was thinking me.

I knew I would die.

I knew I would wake in the dark.

— Karen Klein

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To have your work considered for the Lyrical send it to:
Doug Holder, 25 School St.; Somerville, MA 02143
dougholder@post.harvard.edu