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Foothold
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I think midnight
is a future swelling
ready for wreckage
then prayer, then sun
I think the animals
have voices,
many, too motionless to hear
A backbone, crushed
a starfish, exploding
good emotion squandered
out of fear of failure –
all of this exist
in union with the empty eve
Old people understand
the brave business of life
some, they have conquered competition
cold, ceasing to cry
some, they feel like fugitives
nearing the boundaries of death
shaking like a season
that has lost its beginning
a harvest
ill, unused
I dream of footholds
I dream deliberate
draining meaning
out of every moment
I dream of souls patterned
like constellations
In the snow
a flame was born
Darkness is pointless
lacking the owl’s eyes
I used to house the harrowing hooligans
This way, I have restored my temple
burying my body below sand,
joining the desert
devoted.
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Copyright © 1989 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
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Joshua’s Shoulder was published in 1989 by The Plowman, written by Allison Grayhurst under the pseudonym of Jocelyn Kain.
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Published in the “Peregrine Muse” April 2018
https://sites.google.com/site/theperegrinemuseii/home/grayhurst
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First published in “The Plowman: A Journal of International Poetry” 1989
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