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Charles Atkinson

Charles Atkinson taught poetry and nonfiction writing for 30 years at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His first poetry collection, The Only Cure I Know, received the American Book Series award for poetry.

Author

More Blessed to Receive

I've bent over them in the dark, straddling model train tracks— bright slivers of moonlight—and Bear, abandoned on his back, glassy-eyed. They don't know I come in to mend the broken track and return Bear to the pillow and to ask their for [...]

Back Steps

If she asks you, face averted, to sweep up a fieldmouse carcass by the back steps, you can just take the kitchen broom and dustpan and roll the thing in with a stroke, chatting as you pry off the garbage can lid; but then the chance may not c [...]