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Black and white film photograph of an open fence leading to a body of water.
Photo by Zélie Martin

“Beginnings and Ends”


Dudley Stone
Poetry
Drone and buzz like worker poets
love this, love that,
look for the lies in my poem,
look for the lies in my love.

 

Emily Dickinson reaches through eternity
to pluck my sleeve and say, “Look –
is it not terrifying how You cannot turn
away from Your Fate?”

 

Begin.  End.  Repeat.
              like all our lives are in medias res
              skipping exposition and denouement
              who was wrong and why.

 

Years tally like candles on a cake
like war, like Beckett, (it can’t go on, it goes on).
Begin.  End.  Repeat.  I bob weightless, breathless,
reaching for you like the edge of the pool.