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  • Whetstone
  • Rebecca Dunham (bio)

after the former custom of hanging a whetstone round the neck of a liar

This house burned numb. Someoneshould rub it warm if I willnot. I will not. Do I remember?the drowning man asks. The once us?his fish mouth begs. Ido. Vodka in the garage, I say,wine cabineted, secrets, and evenhis prone body, dead man’s float inthe TV’s rash of light. Anothercotton night. The clock keeps time.

Life like a frieze, and thereis no sound. Like a hearton-screen, pure mute, I growbeautiful: carved cold.My children mouth words. Theyspeak in black and white. I letthe lake take him, theirfather, his arms like two wings.I watch him sink down.

I am that hard. I donot extend my hand, do notstop him. The raft movesin waves. I watch. I am stone. [End Page 84]

I will mineral my ears—willnot curl in upon myself, but thinkin sculpted relief. I want tostep free, clear, to touchmy children’s brows like the sky’swinter blue. To cool with.To take my two children in my twosnow-perfect marble arms. [End Page 85]

Rebecca Dunham

Rebecca Dunham is the author of Glass Armonica, The Flight Cage, and The Miniature Room. Her poems have been published in The Antioch Review, Colorado Review, and AGNI. She is a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

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