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  • Madagascar, and: When the Stones in Ruins Are Damp
  • George Looney (bio)

Madagascar

A ring-tailed lemur watches you,its eyes communion wafers you won't swallow.

The priest turns his back to the congregation,his alb the field of snow you foundthe lemur's tracks in. The priest

whispers something about the holy spiritsof the dead. His calloused handsmake signs over your sleeping body.

One is the cross, one the ring-tailed lemurwho floats your breath as you sleep.

In the morning, you remembersomething about a priestand feel the eyes of the lemur.

Don't worry. Stroke the soft fur behind its ears.It will shiver, lick your hand,and purr. Imagine, a ghost that purrs.

Though it's only a vague husk,troubled, the lemur loves you.

Take it inside where there's a forestthat needs a lemur to care for the canopy.

It will never snow in the Madagascarthe lemur makes of your heart. [End Page 110]

When the Stones in Ruins Are Damp

Any talk of wind is a fallacy.Nothing's behind us pushing us onbut the past. The world ismore than history, morethan what we try to make of it.No matter what we say, wind is

no more the complaints of the deadthan the remnants of the heartof a man ravaged by love.Late February rain in Kinsaleis a cold thing, utterlyfree of bitterness. Local lore says

when the stones in ruins are dampthe dead see the worldmore clearly, & know better how toget to us. Not to tell usanything. Nothing the dead haveto say would matter to us now. [End Page 111]

George Looney

George Looney's books include The Precarious Rhetoric of Angels, Attendant Ghosts, Animals Housed in the Pleasure of Flesh, and the novella Hymn of Ash. In addition, Open Between Us, a new book of poetry, is now out from the Turning Point imprint of WordTech Communications. He chairs the bfa in Creative Writing Program at Penn State Erie. He is editor in chief of the international literary journal Lake Effect, translation editor of Mid-American Review, and co-director of the Chautauqua Writers' Festival.

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