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Dawn
on the Fall Equinox
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| PERSIS
M. KARIM
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Published in Orchard Valley Review, Winter 05
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shifting light of autumn has caused uneasiness. This morning, I lay beside my son, listening to his breathing, finding comfort in the soft bulbs of his hands, opening like poppies at first contact with sunlight. |
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What those other boys in that place where we’ve unleashed war are thinking, I cannot say. Theirs is a life punctuated by the ratta-tatt-tatt of bullets, the mud-green of uniforms, and corpses of bombed-out cars. Waking at dim first light, cannot be like this. Soft and sweet, |
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the certainty of their mother’s breath against neck and hair. In this dream-state here, I can only think of dressing, feeding him, caressing his smallness. |
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I don’t like this early darkness, the falling leaves, the raking that once provided a kind of order reminds me of death somewhere else. |
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How will I explain this to him? In these hummed hours before he speaks my name, I pretend to have a truth that turns the darkness into light. |
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