WEBVTT

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And this next poem
is a poem that

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begins and ends
with a dream that I

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kept having during the couple
of weeks before my friend

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Barry died.

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I kept dreaming I went down
and lay down on the water

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and breathed it in
and did not die.

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"Touched".

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Cold December nights I'd go
and lie down in the shallows

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and breathe the brackish
tide until light

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broke me from dream.

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Days I kept busy with fractured
angels client masquerades.

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One had a tumor.

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Recently removed the scar,
a zipper down his skull,

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his neck, a corset
laced with suture.

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I held and did my tricks too.

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Palms, 10 fingers, each a mouth
suctioning off the untold harm

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parsed with the body's
violent grief at being cut.

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Later a woman whose teenage
children passed on in a crash

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let me massage her
death mask belly

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till the stretch
marks gleamed again,

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pearls on a blushing rise.

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A nurse of women HIV
positive in the city came.

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Her strong young
body filled my hands.

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Fear grips are only
late at night at home.

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Her job a risk on TV.

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It was calm, my
palm on her belly,

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and her heart said breathe.

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I did.

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Her smile could feed.

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Nights I'd go down again and
lie down in the gritty shale

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and breathe the Earth soul
tears till the sun stole me

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from sleep, and when you
died I didn't weep nor dream

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but knew you like a God.

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Breathe in.

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Each healing we begin.