Blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsFall 2022  Vol. 21  No. 2
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back EDWARD MAYES

On Lines from Czesław Miłosz’s “Meaning”

The true meaning, ready to be decoded

—Although I seemed unsteady in the parking
Lot, it was the period at the end of
The sentence I seemed to have stumbled
Over, thinking isn’t there a comma missing somewhere,
Should we pause now, isn’t being born once enough?

—In the purse I found on the street,
Ready money and a photograph of
A fallow horse, but no other clue
To identity, even for identity’s sake,
Have we had enough with perished, we’ve thought?

—You rode all through that renaissance,
Quasi-imaginary light, you felt forgotten
But not forgiven, and I felt that the already-
Dead weren’t paying attention, even to
The stellar darkness, am not, are too, am not, are too.



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