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80 Drought & a pair of ginko trees wither on the dry creek’s banks, below, bare rocks expose themselves in the fissured bed, an embarrassment of private parts, where an old man with a fringe of hair, rod and reel, pants rolled— not bothering to cast—only stands as his wife waits, her face the knotted grace of driftwood, & above on a leafless willow branch, a crow, its wings flecked with purple constellations, like iridescent bruises, spindles from one claw to the other as if to say how dull we are with drought, how the dead & living blur & the walls cover themselves with calligraphy & rooms, relics, friezes, music, whole nights of mystic chords ring through the loft where a dancer works combinations—wet slap of bare feet against bare floor, jetés, glissades, arabesques & odd off-center pliés, arms stretched out into the mirrored wall, body arched against the heat, she strains an hour, two, then a grapefruit, her rib cage glazed with sweat and salt, hip, thigh, usurping idly—who will say how long she has nor any of us, not a single clue out where the slow static of power lines, brittle, metallic, mingle with the crow’s defiant cries, sleepless too, this bird—eyes lidless, moon-dry, white. ...

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