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8 The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, March 4, 2009
All old maids are mystics,
Knees on hardwood floors;
Dust circling as their bodies descend;
Gumbals on the bottoms of their throats;
Chapped lips opening in hope and recitation
Yit-ga-dal v'yit-ka-dash sh'mei ra-ba
And waiting, parted, for the choral response,
Silence like shallow waves
That crush against their mouths,
Salt water dripping on their tongues.
Bodies become brittle and cold,
Thin glass in a tall copper lamp.
They are objects now,
And always were, thinking back to the blacktop,
The rotted peach kickball,
The broken bottle hopscotch,
The forced letters from the front,
And then the casual expectations from the infirm.
So it makes sense now, that all their objects
Have become people now, and all people
Are spiritually significant, always present,
Never gone.
Each book is a Bible,
Each book is a blond, bug-eyed boy,
Each book is silently loved
Just as all things are silently loved.
Things happen in twos.
Resemblances are unmistakable.
Promises made should not be broken.
Resurrection of the dead.
Truth reveals itself only in dreams
And golden songs hummed sweetly
At the breakfast table while clinging
To a faded green mug.
In the corner, where the peeling walls meet:
What is solitaire but at attempt at tarot and truth?
The future is a way to waste the present,
The past was a waste to all present,
All rise and say Amen.t
by David Kinzer I LSA sophomore
ALL
OL D MAIDS
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LLUSTRATION BY ROSE JAFPE
Poet's Notebook
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ILLUSTRATION BY ROSE JAFFE
The Dying Season
the leaves deadened
because it's the dying season
and I'm walking on your grandmother
just as you've stood on mine
scanning verdant fields
lost among flat plaques
are we really so afraid
to hide our corpses in the grass
leaves and dirt and drippings from trees
my hand gets cold sweeping past names clean
my feet grow cold walkingover them
- Adriana Rewald,
LSA senior
The Warmest September
Sheits atmtb coswalkhuddesnersherw s andows
In a beat-up Honda, low to the ground, waiting for the light
To go from yellow to red to green.
Yesterday I peeked over her slouching shoulder:
The crisp handwriting: "Honey, are you happy
There?" Today she clasped herthick sealed response
Standing by the side of the post office leaning
From one knee to the other. She licked one
Stamp, debated two: the second poised on the edge
Of her index finger, anxious for moisture.
The leaves grew from green to yellow to red
And I whispered to t hem "It's not something you can
Measure' Their response: a soft crinkling, a harvestnof agreement.
- LauraBeth Winnick,
SSA sophomore