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THE CARDINAL / Susan Stewart It was on a day like this one. The cardinal was in the mock orange bush, Then gone. There was a spot of blood left in the snow—the last exclamation point of March. Next door the policeman's wife lifted her arms and turned Once more, slowly, toward the wall. A baby fell into a heap of dirty clothes. Everywhere I heard the distant murmur and laughter of televisions in empty rooms. I thought that my parents were sleeping; that my sister had been thrashing through a dream's black water. There was a culvert in the thicket, then, behind the schoolgrounds and it led To a perfect circle of green. This was the light that receded as we ran our hands along the rippling Metal sides, our necks bent slightly, aching toward the water. Turning back, I don't understand anything, until years later when it's too late And something else, like this, has begun. The Missouri Review · 123 ...

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