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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.
Another twitch, another trembling
gait then gone. What could be
elegance is all instinct. I am so tired
of all the fear around me and I have
no idea whose fear it must be. All
I know is another roar and cry
another sweeping light and my legs
frozen fast now and something so
startling it must be good though I
know it cannot be anything but
another night black scurry, another
disaster waiting to seize, on the
dark roads, on the dark dark roads
it is so cold I could crouch down
here on the crackling leaves and
let the black snow bleed over me.
Joseph Campana is author of The Book of Faces. He teaches Renaissance literature at Rice University and is completing a new collection called Sheltering Bough.
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