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Atavistic Sonnet

Susan Stewart

October 8, 2013

Shadow of the gull on the airport wall, lunging

as the fuselage vaults above the meadow. Hollow in

the cornrow where the hobo slept, then a backhoe

filling up the furrow. Misery of clocks in neon

glare, whereabouts of warblers and island foxes,

an old flame googled from the dead letter office, simple

as the still-warm bench at dusk. Typing or sewing,

or bringing down a fever through a length of knotted string

and a rusted staple gun. Here comes the tattooed

witch with her drum while the royals wait by the limousine

grinning. Shadow of the gull on the airport wall,

shallows in the stairs where we fell and stepped, hollow in the

cornrow where the hobo slept, a backhoe filling the furrow.

Susan StewartSusan Stewart is the author, most recently, of Red Rover, a book of poems, and The Poet’s Freedom: A Notebook on Making.


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