PHILLIP BOOTH:
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Like a woman
I loved, I say
words to the dark,
not to suffer.
Grown as I am,
I'm far from
immune: if I'm
in for it long
I want mind to
hold on, words in
my throat ready
to name it. Let
me keep fury
to stay against
pain; if it
is given me
to learn I mean
to know it all
the way, to bear
it like a woman.
As long as you
know you don't know,
not knowing's not
what hurts,
it's what
you don't know you
don't know that
finally gets
to you, right
in the old
solar plexis.
That you are moving so far
will not, as you say,
tear me apart; it is having
to part that tears at
my being, that takes part
of me with you against
all reason, against your will,
against mine; you have
every reason to go, but
that you are going, going
away so far, changes
the map: already I have
in mind the whole city,
not merely your building,
become a crater, a circle
surrounding nothing--
and cast out from it, from
the explosion, a shadow
lengthened into the actual
desert, time zones beyond
today's sunrise, where I
am already flying out
toward you, down to
that shadow's thin end,
down the map to where
you. not yet gone, have already
taken me with you, moved
as I am to find that you
are actually going, going
so far as to prove, beyond
all saying, that in this
irrefutable world it is not
love by which we're torn apart.
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