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Spring 2012 • Vol. XXXIV No. 2 • Poetry |

Elegy and Comfort

In those days, you could leave your child at the city's edge for the 
    wolves. 

You could wrap your child in leaves or in rags; you could put it in a 
    basket and set it afloat 

or sew it in a deerskin and drop it from a cliff.

You could smear it with soot or with dirt and give it to gypsies or dogs, 

or, to guarantee a stormless sea, strap it to the bow of one of many 
    ships.

  • •

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