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the long walk home to omelas

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2022

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at face a crisp, astonishing hallelujah

the tear of a plastic packet that’s how

- from under, out - the sky’s bough throws wide

that daily, sclerotic tremble breaks loose

the silhouette’s answer, gasping for

how it shook through, to the course of

 

all these endless decisions we’ve tried to make

 

i want to / i want that / beg me / we’ll go in,

in a minute if that’s really what i wish

you were there (i, here) only

‘there’s no going back’ only, o interjector

only, o naïve half thing, you wish but

really you can always go home again

 

the founders, too, were homeless

when first they struck upon

the girl who would be king

in whose soil were reflected

the cities and rivers of memory

what’s spare in the unfocus

‘you’ll know what you know

and you’ll always’ besides

the lapping, insect dread

the legacy that’s no one else’s

that spans the night like a sun-

lit ocean in a sliver of mirror

 

it doesn’t call but it is a light