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Dead Man
By Jessica Wiseman
QuailBellMagazine.com
You’ve been the golden reaching up at sunrise—
that gauze above Earth’s wounds.
You’ve been that wound, too-- a piece of a handprint, a fracture of thick bone-- your body to remember you by. You’ve been a great lion with great, soft lion-paws. You’ve been a gray bird-- You’ve been a rubber-seeming black skate, the whole ocean skimmed by your bright belly. You’ve been a stop-thinking, dancing, sea-green river of joy, and the great open blue tinged with night. Your echoes have been so loud against the cold, and in them, I imagine you saying you’re sorry, like a lily, blooming in the driveway while it snows. You’ve been greatness-- Though once or twice, you’ve been the old, white-handled hairbrush you left behind. You’ve been the handle and the spongy, brick-colored rubber base. You’ve been holding the opaque plastic bristles for decades while I untangle-raked out brown, snarling tangles of play, sleep, art, and pudding-- You’ve been greatness at best, and a hairbrush, and a dead man. These are the things you’ve been.
#Unreal #Poem #Dead #Cadaver #Earth'sWound #Gauze #Body #Hairbrush #LeftBehind
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