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Wait

Between the poem and the bomb
      there is no common language
            intense and tenuous

a people who have lost their place
      wait at the back of the crowd
            picking up memories

handkerchief   small scrap of paper list
      remnant cloth of a small dress
            you have to wait for

what is   the sharp breaking open of
      the heart   comes not in
            a surgery   surely not

in a blowing up   but what is poetry
      but the swoosh through
            that catches breath

and takes us to the front   of the line
      between the poem and the bomb
            there is no

but there is   glimpse and transformation

     

Copyright 2007 by James Downs