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Pilgrims
- Wesleyan University Press
- Chapter
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my step, a way back in the dark to where I go without telling lies or leaving anyone, will take a lifetime, and it’s going slowly, and there’s that bluewhite shell I turned my back on at my back, cracked, stuck to me bone by bone, turning to stone, wanting to drop, wanting to turn in a cool globe, wanting to call —You, how is it with you? Archaically cut off. Antarctic miles. Night From this night on God let me eat like that blind child on the train touching her yogurt as I’d touch a spiderweb the first morning in the country—sky red— holding the carton and spoon to her mouth with all her eyeless body, and then orientally resting, the whole time smiling a little to one side of straight ahead. Pilgrims Standing there they began to grow skins dappled as trees, alone in the flare 98 door in the mountain of their own selves: the fire died down in the open ground and they made a place for themselves. It wasn’t much good, they’d fall, and freeze, some of them said Well, it was all they could, some said it was beautiful, some days, the way the little ones took to the water, and some lay smoking, smoking, and some burned up for good, and some waited, lasting, staring over each other’s merciful shoulders, listening: only high in a sudden January thaw or safe a second in some unsmiling eyes they’d known always whispering Why are we in this life. pilgrims 99 [174.129.190.10] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:45 GMT) This page intentionally left blank ...