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Pink gasps. This is not what I imagined
of my life, the animal’s ass rubbed bare from years in the public zoo. They do not say “at second blush” and there’s a reason for that. Desire is unbecoming at forty, and shame shameful. The colobus meets my eyes. But there’s a story in which pink doesn’t follow red, white or anyone’s girlhood; it’s simply the beginning of light going down on the water. Though it’s hard to anticipate an exact dark, I should try to let go of this burning and witness, eyes closed, the metallic scent of its passage, incipient changes of heart. |
Jill Leininger is the author of two poetry chapbooks. She lives and writes in Seattle, WA.
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