Seeking the Balanced Degree
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My mind is painted bright blue
like a pair of favourite jeans.
My belly is bread for thieves. Here
the crime awakens:
I drink from the eternal teat
of responsibility, from the lake
of suffering I must ignore
to breathe a steady rain, to scatter
my guilt amongst the weeds.
What happens when your all is nothing?
or when the truck runs you down seeing only
anonymous hairstrands and entrails?
Knowing love’s limitations,
like one knows the snows or the teeth
of an animal, is the tension that frees.
An enemy is at my table.
A horse is buried under American sands.
My heart is water:
It longs to quench the hot summer skin of sparrows.
.
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Copyright © 1997 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
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First published in “B-Gina Review”