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Whitman's Words
Siobhan Casey
You lie unmoved,
mummified in moonlight,
candled grief flickered
down a well of
dawns and dusks,
pasts and presents.
You roll over, an April
bud lolling in its bed, stem-eye
to the sky, waiting for what
it senses without knowing.
It is then you remember
the hummingbird
fallen in the garden, between
a row of ripe tomatoes
and withering azaleas.
You would like that to be
your way,
with the sun rusting,
reaching, rushing fast,
until it burned, and you
thirsted for an end.
Then, as if in mid-day
prayer, you would
drop
to your knees
and taste the soil,
Whitman’s words rising to your lips—
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses
each word a cloud
hovering above you,
echoed in the
sucking of grains still soft
from your watering can,
its silver side
winking sunlight as you
lie down
to fall asleep.
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