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Sighing into the River
by Bill Cowee
From the moment of birth, the green
fuse is lit, its length measured out.
A saguaro takes seventy years to grow
an arm, they say, and the starfish
buys time, regenerates from an internal
blueprint the arms of its identity.
Patience guides the ballet of living
systems, the Swan Lake of cells.
In this ballet, the drake is human,
the bolt-strike a diabetic arrow,
a silver needle in subcutaneous plunge.
Slowly the insulin twirls the sugar
in a high lift, extended leg split,
toes in perfect point, sweet strings
of the orchestra in tremolo. And, always,
in tempo, the wearing away. A forgetfulness
of fingers and legs, a sputtering pancreas,
the tired kidneys, and the eyes,
the lenses soft diffusion of an aging
actor’s face, the lines of things
less fine, less distinct, the way issues
take on grayness from black and white.
Days accept the night a bit sooner,
awaken a bit later, and the advancing
columns of numbers begin to camouflage
their faces in the green ledger foliage.
Now, flint and stone of memory ignite
the torches, the words that burn within.
In the way the mud soaked banks of fields
sigh into the river, I begin to let go,
slip into the dark water, feel the ache
of light struggling upward, toward
my mouth, my eyes, the only way out.
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Fire
by Billy Newman
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