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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
VIRGINIA, by KAREN SWENSON Poet's Biography First Line: First they took off one breast Last Line: The more multiples there are. Subject(s): Death; Surgery; Women; Dead, The | |||
First they took off one breast then the other then her ovaries came out then her pituitary gland. Slowly they dismembered her to keep her alive. They started with the things they understood cutting her womanhood away, the most obviously infected part, and then the module whose function they weren't sure of. It is a matter of taking out the fuse so the lights won't go on. She stands on the corner and talks to me, wearing her scars behind the soft sculpture of foam, tells me that living with death is not too bad. It gives life salt, not depending on any other time to make up your tense, and days become what they always should have been, pungent with the present. She leaves me to go to the hospital, moving from biopsy to biopsy as they cut her back to the bone, but the more they minus the more multiples there are. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRIEND KILLED IN THE WAR by ANTHONY HECHT FOR JAMES MERRILL: AN ADIEU by ANTHONY HECHT TARANTULA: OR THE DANCE OF DEATH by ANTHONY HECHT CHAMPS D?ÇÖHONNEUR by ERNEST HEMINGWAY NOTE TO REALITY by TONY HOAGLAND |
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