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Louise Glück

Louise Glück

The Gold Lily

As I perceive
I am dying now and know
I will not speak again, will not
survive the earth, be summoned
out of it again, not
a flower yet, a spine only, raw dirt
catching my ribs, I call you,
father and master: all around,
my companions are failing, thinking
you do not see. How
can they know you see
unless you save us?
In the summer twilight, are you
close enough to hear
your child’s terror? Or
are you not my father,
you who raised me?

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Confession

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First Memory

Long ago, I was wounded. I lived to revenge myself against my father, not for what he was— for what I was: from the beginning…
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Odysseus’ Decision

The great man turns his back on th… Now he will not die in paradise nor hear again the lutes of paradise among the ol… by the clear pools under the cypre…
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The Pond

Night covers the pond with its win… Under the ringed moon I can make… your face swimming among minnows a… echoing stars. In the night air the surface of the pond is metal.
The Racer’s Widow

The elements have merged into soli… Spasms of violets rise above the m… And weed, and soon the birds and a… Will be starting to arrive, bereav… South. But never mind. It is not…
Midnight

Speak to me, aching heart: what Ridiculous errand are you inventin… Weeping in the dark garage With your sack of garbage: it is n… To take out the garbage, it is you…
The Garden

The garden admires you. For your sake it smears itself wit… The ecstatic reds of the roses, So that you will come to it with y… And the willows—
The Silver Lily

The nights have grown cool again,… Of early spring, and quiet again.… Speech disturb you? We’re Alone now; we have no reason for s… Can you see, over the garden-the f…
Lullaby

My mother’s an expert in one thing… sending people she loves into the… The little ones, the babies—these she rocks, whispering or singing q… what she did for my father;
A Fantasy

I’ll tell you something: every day people are dying. And that’s just… Every day, in funeral homes, new w… new orphans. They sit with their h… trying to decide about this new li…
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All Hallows

Even now this landscape is assembl… The hills darken. The oxen Sleep in their blue yoke, The fields having been Picked clean, the sheaves
Happiness

A man and a woman lie on a white b… It is morning. I think Soon they will waken. On the bedside table is a vase of lilies; sunlight
Siren

I became a criminal when I fell i… Before that I was a waitress. I didn’t want to go to Chicago wi… I wanted to marry you, I wanted Your wife to suffer.
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Nostos

There was an apple tree in the yar… this would have been forty years ago—behind, only meadows. Drifts of crocus in the damp grass.
Retreating Wind

When I made you, I loved you. Now I pity you. I gave you all you needed: bed of earth, blanket of blue air— As I get further away from you
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