Since I was the one who had been ill, it was me she came to see.
Everyone wanted a glimpse of her.
The people emerged from their houses toward mine
and with such caution.
They made a visor of their hands.
It was as if they were to be accounted for,
wading the long uphill, little moving triangles
all I could distinguish at first.
But the queen came to see only me and I saw her.
And my life for a while was dismissed
and so repaired.
Source: Poetry (November 2011).
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This poem originally appeared in the November 2011 issue of Poetry magazine
Allison Seay was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1980. She earned a BA in English at Mary Washington College (now University of Mary Washington) in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 2002 and an MFA in poetry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2005. Her honors include publication in such journals as Crazyhorse, the Southern Review, Meridian, Arts and Academe, and Pleiades. Her first book manuscript is under . . .
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