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TOLL

BY KATE MIDDLETON

         —cento after Barry Lopez


 

Like a vision through a white picket fence—

 

Like a salt crust after the tide—

 

         A great whale lies dying in the forest

         its dying thoughts pass sub rosa leaf to leaf

         in a soft after-rain of twigs

 

Like the air around a stone—

 

Like a forgotten name or the taste of a peach—

 

         The whale feels pain along the ribs

         dismantled by loneliness

 

         Odour of bruised grass and cracked bone

         hanging in the air

 

Once an antelope taught it to run

 

Now it suffers the loudest dreaming, the dreams of boulders—

 

         And to the anguish of snails

         even the faint movement of its blood

 

         tolls like rain driven against tower bells

         tolls like the laughing of horses

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