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  • Thomas at the Assumption
  • K. A. Hays (bio)

after Correggio's "Assumption of the Virgin"

She's kicked past a squall            of naked limbs, and funnels        through the tangled flesh of cherubs. [End Page 141] It's believed God sucks her            to the dome's peak,        a yellow globe.I believe she is dying.            I stand below her,        keeping my arms outflung,asking only to stay            at the edge of it,        where the breath of God is a wind,not a gale. Who am I            to have hoped this would be        water taken into a cloud?Who am I            to have wished for a god        as forgiving as soil in rain?I want to believe heaven            is the sun on the ceiling,        the honor of a long faith—but her robes splay;            her sleeve hides her eyes.        Come closer. I'll say this—I believe even the Virgin            in her supposed perfection        would rather flyto where the sheep still laze            and the mosquitoes mill        and for milesthe fields stand mute, still green,            the child unborn, the star        a guide to stables other than hers. [End Page 142]

K. A. Hays

K. A. Hays is the author of Dear Apocalypse (Carnegie Mellon) and the chapbook Some Monolith (Black Warrior Review Chapbook Series). Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from the Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Yale Anthology of Younger American Poets, and elsewhere.

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