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[74] AT R I S K There it was, a longing I swear I’d lost. I wept as if in exile, holding to my cheek the sea-green turquoise ring from the pueblo (a pattern in the stone like clouds). Was I still under the mountain’s spell if all I could hear was its call to a wildflower peace? Must I return to it, like Cezanne drawn to the silhouette of Sainte-Victoire? At Mass today, the kiss of peace, I embraced a man whose wife is dying of cancer. Shameless, I enjoyed his thirst, before I pulled back. Tonight, I’m a woman lying on a couch lit by a hundred watt bulb, lulled by the running of the dishwasher. Hardly an odalisque. I look around me at a roomful of paintings and books, what I have left to protect. I could say [75] the mountain is here. Why isn’t that enough? I could ask the dying wife. She would pity my thirst. ...

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