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In my arms like a child's, not drowned, Not drowned, and I float with her off My feet. We are here; we move differently, Sustained, closer together, not weighing On ourselves or on each other, not near fish Or anything but light, the one human light From above that we lie in, breathing Its precious abandoned gold. We rise out Into our frozen land-bodies, and her lips Turn blue, sealed against me. What I can do In the unforgivable cold, in the least Sustaining ofall brute worlds, is to say Nothing, not ask forgiveness, but only Give her all that in my condition I own, wrap her in many towels. The War WOund It wounded well-one time and A half: once with instant blood and again Reinfecting blackly, years later. Now all Is calm at the heel ofmy hand Where I grabbed, in a belliedin airplane, and caught the dark glass Offered once in a lifetime by The brittle tachometer. Moons by the thousands Have risen in all that time; I hold The healed half-moon ofthat night. I tell it to shine as still As it can in the temperate flesh That never since has balled into a fist, To hover on nylon guitar strings Like the folk-moon itself; The War lfiJund / 225 I tell it to burn like a poison When my two children threaten themselves, Wall-walking, or offthe deep end Ofa county swimming pool, And with thousands ofmoons Coming over me year after year, I lie with it well under cover, The war ofthe millions, Through glass ground under Heel twenty-one years ago Concentrating its light on my hand, Small, but with world-fury. Mangham Somewhere between bells the right angles staggered And Mangham poised, sensing thunder, Something crooked in the straight lines ofhis brain. Chalk dust rose from his shoulders, lost more Weight, settled upward. The blackboard altered Its screech, and the teeth ofthe children were set On edge. Above our doped heads the ceiling whitened As the part in Mr. Mangham's hair Lost its way; a gray lock fell; Behind him as he turned, the Law OfCosines. He pressed the middle ofhis brow With a handkerchief, looking at all ofus As he stepped Quickly out ofthe room. In the center Ofthe high school a sound arose from us, A hive sound, amazing, increasing. I tore up my note To Serena Hill, and leaned and spoke Boldly to her in person. At the threshold Mr. Mangham appeared with a handkerchief Full oflumps; Buckdancer's Choice / 226 ...

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