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This poem is taken from PN Review 168, Volume 32 Number 4, March - April 2006.

Two Poems Erica Wagner


how we have come to look like trees

we tell the story
each to each
of one who came
with a wooden hand
and when the lightning
cracked the sky
drew his arm
across the land
and stole their roots
and stole their leaves
he stole the grass
he stole the seeds
he held them in
his burning palm
he passed the torch
so here we are
our crowns
the wind
the leaves
the seeds


the island
...


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