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Or cry to breathe? or did she lie Still in her private dark, curled taut Under her sleep’s hobgoblin shout? Anesthesia blew me out: I gardened shadows in my lost crib While they took her from me like a rib. Swaddled and barred, she curls in sleep At the dry edge of mortality. If the sky’s side proves too steep Who will take up the little old lady, Who will call her by her name When she’s a crumble of bones? What logos lights the filament of time, Carbon arc fusing birth-stone to head-stone? The mud pulls harder: the stepping stones Shake in front of my swimming eyes. There dear, there dear, here’s a pill: Sleep, sleep, all will be well: Lull-lullaby. Sarah’s Christening Day Our Lord, today is Sarah’s christening day. I wouldn’t build the child a house of straw, Teach her to wait and welcome the holy face With candles of prayer, or pray, if the wager were all. But I have never seen or loved the holy face. I don’t believe the half of what I pray. This world is straw: straw mother, father, friend, Per omnia saecula saeculorum, amen. But Lord! it shines, it shines, like light, today. dream barker 53 ...

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