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We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
I will try to know your death exactly
As you do. The moon has shown up tonight,
Coin in the palm of one we wait for, sunset
Long gone. So hard this practice to wake
Into no more light, not even in the place
You left it. Then each morning comes
And you are followed by the rise
Of landscape everywhere. We never know
How much it takes, this business
Of departure; you stare into ocean
Outdone by all you want. Enough
Of what continues. Here it comes again,
The turning of dark and dirt, unable to stop;
Love, even with everything to be sad about.
Sophie Cabot Black is author of The Misunderstanding of Nature and The Descent. Her poetry has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Poetry.
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