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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THREADS by WINIFRED VIRGINIA JACKSON

First Line: WHEN I WAS A YOUNG GIRL
Last Line: FALLEN IN A PIT.
Subject(s): JESUS CHRIST; MEMORY;

When I was a young girl,
With a tilted chin,
Passed I by this door and that
Laughing at my kin.

Then there burst a red sun,
Spilling windless flame,
Spattering my ash-white bones
With a secret name.

Ran I to a wide door,
Where a candle burned
High above a hundred heads,
Not a face upturned.

"Poof!" I snapped my fingers;
"Poof!" I tossed my chin,
As the withered whispers begged
By the dance-way in.

In the strew of twilight,
Through the kitchen door,
Dragged I like a blinded hare
With the wounds I bore.

Now I am an Old One,
Remembering it . . .
And that old red cow of Christ's
Fallen in a pit.



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