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—81 Narcissus Before the Rain The carriers of water bring their own extinction. He tried to think his way through himself, there wasn’t any person deep enough (first, second, or third, no one beside himself) for him to drown in thought, wasn’t water deep enough to outmaneuver rain. Skimming between the flat, slick stepping-stones from water into deeper sink, he let the current overtake him, where light is money, money is a kind of light, spilled nickels in the surface sheen, the price of love or what it costs to find yourself wrist-deep in flowing currency, foam and glister of luck, bend down and pick it up, palm-full of polluted froth, coins scurrying between cupped fingers (money dribbles from half-open lips), small change of personhood lost to the in-between, packed branches of the almost-trees elbowing aside sky the stream gives back, the almost-trees the stream gives back, then takes away, noon treasury sealed up by gathering cloud-cover (a kind of sight at second hand). He tried to gather up the foaming money before another threatened shower of gold broke over his empty head, walked down into high water rushing to be an elsewhere, rising to submerged occasion. Pockets weighted down with coins, he gave nothing away, trying his luck. shepherd text-2.indd 81 11/22/10 2:07 PM ...

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