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To Whom it May Concern
---for Harry Cobb

Soon I’ll move to Norway.
If that’s a bitter pill,

well, swill, swallow. I’m going,
and I won’t wallow, not in Norway,

where they’re so beyond
slave labor, with laws that say

a clerk must work within five
meters of a window through

which she can see a tree
and by that tree be seen.

My mind’s made up.
I will be Norwegian with Norwegian

trees. I’ll be seer and be seen.
It’s a scenic scene, it’s

how it goes, I’m going.
Tell the top brass, if

they ask, I don’t give
a damn about their asses.

But I will miss the beeches and the ashes.
It’s not their fault I’m leaving.

They’re only trees, and
leaving, I’m Norwegian.

-Andrea Cohen, 2010