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    • May 2013

    David Caplan, Linda Gregerson, Derek Sheffield, A. E. Stallings, Michelle Boisseau, Peter Cole, and more.

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Turning to watch you leave,

I see we must always walk toward

other loves, river of   heaven

between two office buildings.

Orphaned cloud, fish soup poppling,

book spined in the open palm. Unstoppable light.

I think it is all right.

Or do tonight, garden toad

a speaking stone,

young sound in an old heart.

Annul the self? I float it,

a day lily in my wine. Oblivion?

I love our lives,

keeping me from it.

Source: Poetry (February 2013).

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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

This poem originally appeared in the February 2013 issue of Poetry magazine

• Letter to the Editor
  by Brian Rosson
• The Cricket and the Grasshopper
  by Dan Beachy-Quick
• Four Memories of Joan Mitchell
  by John Yau

• February 2013 Table of Contents
• Subscribe to Poetry magazine
• About Poetry magazine
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More about this poem

Biography

Lisa Russ Spaar's most recent book of poems is Vanitas, Rough (December 2012).  A collection of her essays, The Hide-and-Seek Muse:  Annotations of Contemporary Poetry, is due out in March 2013.  Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Weinstein Award for Poetry, the Library of Virginia Award, and a Rona Jaffe Award for Emerging Women Writers. Spaar is a professor at the University of Virginia.

Continue reading this biography

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Poems by Lisa Russ Spaar

• Departures: Chapter One
• Midas Passional
• Temple On My Knees
• Temple You

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Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Living, Life Choices, The Mind, Love, Heartache & Loss

Poetic Terms Free Verse

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Audio

• The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Engineering an April

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