This is the blog form of the original composition. You may also read it as a list on one page.
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Mirrored, mirrored on the bay,
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which is the fairest of them…
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A shrine’s wooden cross,
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stranded in weeds, untended
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beside the toll road.
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Christmas garlands, tinsel-draped;
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Death does not take holidays.
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One woman wears words,
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the dark aura of her grief,
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her own crown of thorns.
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ERs, ICUs, IVs
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lend her language urgency.
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A second woman,
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unadorned on a bare stage,
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stakes them as her own.
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Between actor and writer,
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a conspiracy of dread.
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This cannot end well.
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Otherwise, where’s the drama.
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But why speak of it:
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altruistic warning or
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expiation, catharsis?
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The facts, complicit;
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a husband, a daughter die.
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The survivor’s masque:
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theatre as oasis
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with its well of cold wisdom.
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Define who you are:
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assigned to sixteen year-olds,
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a four-month challenge.
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The teacher’s demand blinds him.
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Few images, no words come.
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What he ‘sees’ is white,
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white as the bay in winter.
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Surface, all surface.
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The expanse, the emptiness —
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speak to him of his likeness.
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One girl in his class
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transfers words onto paper.
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Parchment confessions
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rolled and tied, suspended from
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lines, as transparent as she.
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Another classmate:
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her self study, scuplted in
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blue papier mache.
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Scarlet lips, parted, scream out
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obsenities, defilement.
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It is no surprise —
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she IS that tortured torso.
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His offering, pales.
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An aquarium: heavy
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with water, silt, his stuff.
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A dime, a penknife
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join a cat’s eye, rubik’s cube,
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an empty pill box,
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a rusted padlock, open,
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a box of condoms, still wrapped.
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Now he adds `ice,`snow`;
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a slab of thick styrofoam —
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precise cut, force fed —
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shrieks as it streaks down the glass.
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Afloat, it steals the surface.
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Each found object, drowned:
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a loser’s pitiable picks.
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Too late to change them.
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Their weight, heavy on his chest.
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Breathless, he hands his work in.
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He waits for judgment
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as waves wait below March ice —
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impatient, pulsing.
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Doesn’t know for what he hopes:
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Kudos or oblivion?
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No one has told Spring.
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She ignores the willing sun.
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Scowls her cold ‘welcome.’
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His designs on her, fruitless,
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she smoothes her shifts of snow.
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She takes the lesson —
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the hard one she learned from Earth:
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To yield is weakness.
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Earth, deflowered, denuded
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seeks vengeance, retribution.
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A victim no more,
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she dresses herself in flames,
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throws off her mantle.
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She forgets the children, sends
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the wave to steal their future.
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Conversations fail.
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Voracious grief consumes worlds.
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Which death is harsher?
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A lover’s, mother’s or child’s?
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To answer, dissect a heart.
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Ask no such questions.
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Find a heart sanctuary
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in stained glass fragments.
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Light–broken, scattered– can’t warm
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stone but colours hands in prayer.
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Long-shadow sunrise;
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breakers in exultation
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recite liturgies.