WEBVTT

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This poem is based on newspaper
story I saw some time ago.

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It's called "The Questioning."

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"Mute and dazed, the
latest Persephone

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has surfaced in
Memphis, Tennessee.

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A squad car brought her
in just before dawn.

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Before the sun could turn
its searchlight on her

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and make her run.

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14, perhaps 15, they think.

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When they ask her about the
cigarette burns on her arms

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and ankles, she shakes her head.

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She will not betray her keeper
nor the location of hell.

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For months, perhaps for
years, she waited for them.

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For the rescue
that did not come.

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By now she denies
them even her name.

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No mother has come to claim her.

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And her emergence among us
does not explain the seasons.

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It happens in autumn,
as well as spring.

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It is happening now.

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Somewhere, somebody's daughter
comes stumbling into the light,

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refusing to give up her
dark burden, which is

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all she has brought from home."

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