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When, on this looped trail,
she scuffles left (trying, always trying) and I run right, it means running both away from and back toward her. Disappearance and return: A way to practice death; a daily way to experience resurrection. ∞ Without a shirt, air eddies my ribcage. Without a watch, no cultured clock time. Just poplars casting their long lines of shadow, swallows ceding bats the sky. Without shoes, the damp earth eases up to meet me, my steps quiet enough the deer only quiver at my sudden scent—one, a fawn so young its flanks are still licked dark by its mother’s tongue. Earlier, beneath our cool blue sheets, when I brought my mouth to her before her eyes had even opened, she said, In my dream, you were inside me. Did you know it ? Were you there, too ? ∞ In these woods, winter is a brown room, and here we are, inside it together. Above, the sky is stained glass cut by a leading of brown branches. Between the trunks, a thousand blue doors. We are in need of no keys. The light is on the river where gulls rise like ashes of the sun’s setting fire. Does she see it, too? My eyes strain around each corner, ears hunt her returning step. ∞ No matter how many times this running apart to come back to each other works, there’s always a moment I’m sure I’ve lost her. A moment my head goes dark. But between the birches, there she is, high-stepping up a hill, panting a bit, yelling my name, flushed and happy. We are on the forest’s far side. This day, well on its way to the next. Whether it’s hers or mine, with a shared pace, a shared direction, let us turn and return as one, continuing on together in whatever light is left to us.
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VOLUME 52.2 |
CURRENT ISSUE
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CONTACT
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DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
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