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THE DROWNED AMONG US / Robin Behn I know, since we can't find you, you want only to be more with us, not with me, only, but with us all as water is, cool beneath the shifting plates we float on for a while. We find the other ones who've drowned: those who carried in their lungs a last little pillow of air, who always knew they'd come back to lay their deep claim, roundshouldered and smooth as if from weeks bent in prayer, trying to save us. But all you ever wanted was to vanish into our midst. I can see you that fall day you stood on the bridge, ready, finally, to be taken back. AU afternoon as I was turning the brown garden I felt a wind small as breath insisting from the shore, as you slowly, deliberately, let it all pass back out of you, anything love had let seep in. And now as long as water moves you will be healed, and ours. At any shore I can watch the water swathe you, rising as it meets somewhere deep your naked form. The day you left, your mother filled a bowl with cool water, and brought it to the boy who was feverish and waiting for his brother to come back before he'd eat: he puts his face in for what he thinks must be forever. And when he looks up 54 · The Missouri Review the fever floats in the bowl and the water, like forgiveness, burns with what is lost. Robin Behn THE MISSOURI REVIEW · 55 ...

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