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20 In the House of Our New Marriage —San Francisco, 1896 Once, you lay your head on my lap and listened to me read: I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. My left hand rearranged your hair against the folds of my skirt, and, with my fingertips, I mapped the day’s heat across your scalp. The book’s weight in my right hand, the dust in the air, the honey of my breath, a murmur: for thy love is better than wine. Our marriage was so new I could hold it in my palm like an egg still warm from the henhouse. 21 I thought of the egg, a white promise, and forgot the hen’s loss, the shards of shell. Once, sweetly, you lay your head in my lap and listened to me read: love is as strong as death jealousy is as cruel as the grave from the only book we had under the beams and rafters in the newly raised house of our marriage. ...

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