tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6107966.post-46357580257527195132007-11-14T15:09:00.000-06:002007-11-14T17:28:46.238-06:00<blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Quarantine</span></span><br />by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eavan_Boland">Eavan Boland</a><br /><br />In the worst hour of the worst season<br />of the worst year of a whole people<br />a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.<br />He was walking---they were both walking---north.<br /><br />She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.<br />He lifted her and put her on his back.<br />He walked like that west and north.<br />Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.<br /><br />In the morning they were both found dead.<br />Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.<br />But her feet were held against his breastbone.<br />The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.<br /><br />Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.<br />There is no place here for the inexact<br />praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.<br />There is only time for this merciless inventory:<br /><br />Their death together in the winter of 1847.<br />Also what they suffered. How they lived.<br />And what there is between a man and a woman.<br />And in which darkness it can best be proved.</blockquote>Omegarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04714914912656172588noreply@blogger.com