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62 The LastTen Minutes I am the greatest nation on earth and into me melt A hundred epochs of ice, the calming skin of the water come to rest In a motionless glass, water, that will, when swallowed, Make my own flesh a kind of interior And demand of the air in the room and the buildings across the street And the swaths of forests coursing like rivers Between former forests and the rivers themselves that they be My heart and my head. I am the greatest nation on earth and into me melts The smell of the rose on the table whose display was delayed Until after its move from soil to vase—a rose I removed from the earth Of which I am, by virtue of style, the greatest nation. The sky will soon apply inside me for permission to proceed. Birds (read impressions made) will move Stage left to right in iambs past my setting sun, Blue as veins coming, red as arteries going, The sole but substantial wind created by their alternating m, v, m, v, m, v, Though those letters too will collapse in the absence of vowels (Read soul), to be replaced by draftless gliding parallel continuous lines. The white space time cannot black in or out Is how these lines hold sway. Into me melts the mind of the water On the lip of the glass that chaperones the poison. Thick, deliberate, irreversible, the mind of the water conducts my thoughts Like the last ferry of the season on a northern lake. I show my gratitude by dying before I reach the other side. May my successors enjoy the circuitous winter detour. ...

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