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Given


ISSUE:  Summer 1993
Whatever happened yesterday or just
now. Whatever light comes in
through my reflection. My next thought
as soon as it fastens,

these words after I erase them.
Happiness, when it comes, so sudden,
like a lucky stumble in talk.
Old news: starlight, thunder, rust.

A friend, the tumor cut out of her thigh,
trying to remember how it was
to dread something else.
Any pattern just before it ends,

then the lack of it.
My life every day becoming
what I have not done.

Don Colburn

THE LUXURY OF DISTANCE

In spite of the news
and what the world chooses to tell itself,
death this week is not a brick wall,
not a bullet, a needle, a cliff leap
or quick implosion under the breastbone.
Death this week is nothing but a thin skin
a life leaks through quietly,
too slow to notice. Each day
a day seeps to the other side.
Each day but one, another waits.
Sometimes, with the luxury of distance,
you can feel it,
the strongest part of yourself.

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