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Love Recidivus

By Lisa Barnett Lisa Barnett

Whatever it may be, we may suppose

it is not love, for love must leave its trace

like contraband seized and displayed in rows;

is not sufficient reason to erase

the careful lives we have so far lived through—

there is no call for us to undermine

the walls we've built; no need to think anew

of all the chains and choices that define

us still. And yet for all our fine intent

a single touch ignites the night and tries

resolve past all resisting. What we meant

before we mean again; fidelities

have yet been known to shift and come undone

and all good reasons fail us, one by one.

Source: Poetry (September 2003).

Biography

Lisa Barnett attended Brandeis and took an M.S. from the Newhouse School of Journalism at Syracuse University. Her work has appeared in The New Criterion, Hellas, The Formalist, and other journals. She has been a semi-finalist for the Discovery/The Nation Award and a finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award.

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