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Tenderness and rot   

share a border.   

And rot is an   

aggressive neighbor   

whose iridescence   

keeps creeping over.   

No lessons   

can be drawn   

from this however.   

One is not   

two countries.   

One is not meat   

corrupting.   

It is important   

to stay sweet   

and loving.

Source: Poetry (January 2002).

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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

This poem originally appeared in the January 2002 issue of Poetry magazine

View this poem in its original format

• Widower at Work
  by Martin Galvin
• Water Signs
  by Susan Kelly-DeWitt
• Marathoner
  by Martin Galvin

• January 2002 Table of Contents
• Subscribe to Poetry magazine
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More about this poem

Biography

Born in California in 1945 and acknowledged as one of the most original voices in the contemporary landscape, Kay Ryan is the author of several books of poetry, including Flamingo Watching (2006), The Niagara River (2005), and Say Uncle (2000). Her book The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (2010) won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Ryan's tightly compressed, rhythmically dense poetry is often compared to that of Emily . . .

Continue reading this biography

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Poems by Kay Ryan

• A Ball Rolls on a Point
• A Certain Kind of Eden
• A Hundred Bolts of Satin
• Album
• All You Did

• More poems by Kay Ryan (38 poems)
  • Atlas
  • Bait Goat
  • Blandeur
  • Blast
  • Carrying a Ladder
  • Cloud
  • Crocodile Tears
  • Crown
  • Cut Out For It
  • Felix Crow
  • Flamingo Watching
  • He Lit a Fire with Icicles
  • Home to Roost
  • Houdini
  • Linens
  • Miser Time
  • New Rooms
  • Paired Things
  • Party Ship
  • Pinhole
  • Repetition
  • Repulsive Theory
  • Salvage
  • Sharks' Teeth
  • Soft
  • Still Start
  • Surfaces
  • The Fabric of Life
  • The Late Worm
  • The Obsoletion of a Language
  • The Pieces That Fall To Earth
  • Thin
  • Turtle

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Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Friends & Enemies, Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy

POET’S REGION U.S., Western

Poetic Terms Metaphor, Consonance, Epigram, Mixed

If you disagree with this poem's categorization, make a suggestion.

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• Turtle
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Video

• Unlikely Laureate: A Conversation with Kay Ryan
• Sharks’ Teeth
• Turtle

Articles

• Animal Magic by Aidin Vaziri
• Eight Takes: Swann, Rogers, Brock, Howard, Nelson, Logan, Ryan, Stevenson by D. H. Tracy
• The Pigheaded Soul by Jason Guriel

Events

• Elizabeth Alexander, Billy Collins, Sandra Cisneros, Robert Hass, Edward Hirsch, and Kay Ryan | In Conversation with Jeffrey Brown of the PBS NewsHour
• Kay Ryan | A Reading
• Poetry & Music: "100th Anniversary Garland" of Poetry Magazine Selections

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