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And then the other poem I
want to read from The Lice

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is one of three poems that
are in the middle of the book

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that it sort of turns around.

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This one's called "The Child."

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"Sometimes, it is inconceivable
that I should be the age I am.

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Almost always, it is at a
dry point in the afternoon.

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I cannot remember
what I am waiting

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for and, in my astonishment,
I can hear the blood crawling

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over the plains, hurrying
on to arrive before dark.

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I try to remember my faults to
make sure, one after the other.

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But it is never satisfactory.

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The list is never complete.

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At times, night occurs
to me so that I think

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I have been struck from behind.

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I remain perfectly
still, feigning death,

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listening for the assailant.

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Perhaps, at last, I even sleep a
little, for later I have moved.

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I open my eyes.

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The lantern fish have
gone home in darkness.

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On all sides, the
silence is unharmed.

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I remember, but
I feel no bruise.

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Then there are the stories.

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And after a while, I think
something else must connect

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them besides just this, me.

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I regard myself
starting the search,

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turning corners, and
remembered metropoli.

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I pass skin withering in
gardens that I see now

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are not familiar.

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But I have lost even the
thread I thought I had.

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If I could be consistent,
even in destitution,

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the world would be revealed.

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While I can, I try to
repeat what I believe.

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Creatures, spirits,
not this posture.

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I do not believe in knowledge
as we know it, but I forget.

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The silence coming at intervals
out of the shell of names,

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it must be all one
person, really,

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coming at different
hours for the same thing.

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If I could learn
the word for Yes,

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it could teach me questions.

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I would see that it
was itself every time.

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And I would remember to
say, take it up like a hand,

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and go with it.

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This is, at last, yourself.

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The child that will lead you."

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[APPLAUSE]

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