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Poetry

Each day I woke as it started to get dark, and the pain came. Month after month of this—who knows when I got well. With dawn, now, waking from the rampage of sleep, I am walking in the Lincoln woods. A single bird is loudly singing. And I walk here as I always have, as though through tall room after room in a more or less infinite house where the owner’s not home yet watching me somehow, observing my behavior, from behind the two-way mirror of appearances, I suppose, and listening, somewhat critically, to what I am thinking. Not too, however. At certain moments I could swear there is even a sense of being liked, as sunlight swiftly changes, leaving, leaving and arriving again. A bird is chirping bitterly, as if these words were meant for me, as if their intent is within me, and will not speak. Nothing is left me of you.

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