Blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsSpring 2011 v10n1
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LILAH HEGNAUER

The city was burning—or it wasn’t.

I don’t know how to woo you. Lightning
struck the city blind and I was its prophet seer.
I lost you then. And no river took us home.
And no roads lead home. And no market
to market, to buy a fat hog, and no home
again, home again, no jiggity jog. I’ve known
a heaven, like a gate. And you were not its keeper.

I crept, stealthy in my stolen black, a porter
of only your unknown hours. Who you? Who,
seriously, were you? A fawn. A cobalt. A convalescent
in a courtyard in a time before mine.
Whole milk scared you. You cardiologist, you.
What nothing. What nothing undid you in moments.  end


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