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Poetry | November 2004

Verses for the Early Child

By Deborah Diemont

i.
Her toes shaped like teardrops,
her fingers splayed,
she curled and played possum
on the lines of my hand.

ii.
I couldn’t toss her back,
a tiny fish into the river,
unhook her rosy lip and say,
Your lungs must two-fold bloom.

iii.
I sing hush-a-bye
against the valley of death
where she fights shadows
with sand dollar hands.

iv.
On her belly: a gold token,
just enough to pay her passage
to the ferryman who brought her
into the crimson light.

v.
All winter, whiteness hovered
with its animal breath;
Her eyelids flickered
till pink magnolias came.

vi.
Each night the hourglass emptied
at midnight, two, and four.
Into her lily mouth,
I drained my body’s nectar.

vii.
Her eyes are rolling amulets.
The cleft above her lip
marks where the angel hushed her,
Don’t give away your secrets.

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