The Poetry Archive

Here is the grain where an elbow rested through winters of uncertain drafts. Here is the ink mark where a sentence stumbled and was struck out three times in red. The desk does not ask if the book will sell,

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The river does not keep an archive of stones it had to bend around in spring. It does not hold a grievance against the winter ice that locked its voice beneath the ridge. It moves by giving up its shape to the land,

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