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62 Prayer For The One Who Could Not Stop Looking Do you remember how the spirit moved across the living room and the living room took it like a wheat field under rain and I took you by the wrist and said Listen: you’ll never look into the mouth of death, that darker paradise? Then I left you like a skylark charmed by her own song though for many years I was afraid of my reflection. We moved away to our own cursed cities with sparks for eyes, smoke for hands. I heard you met a stranger who led you by the neck to yourself-on-your-knees in the gray morning. I met a man who shook my shoulders till they fell like blossoms when the rain came. I could hear your pulse although I was heartless. It coursed through me like trade winds through a southern cave. 63 Once when we were young you made circles on my back when the spirit returned and demons made shapes across the ceiling at dusk. I knew death had eyes that were lidless. But you locked your gaze there so that I could be free. This is how you came and taught me how to pray. You took one look and could not stop looking. ...

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