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Lotte Kramer

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Three Returns

Lotte Kramer reading Three Returns 2730.3 KB
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Reading of love,
Their lifelong universe,
I shut the book
Eyes blind with ache and tense
With hoarded rust.
I know one gesture tells
Of years, one look
Can summon light and fears
Will fall to dust.
Return brings homeless dark.

At Passover
They gravely pray for Zion.
A coming home.
I stood there, saw them sway
In that rose-glove
Of stone. Jerusalem
Was not my soil.
Only Lot’s wife remains,
Hard in her blood,
Her turning struck to salt,
Her longing cold.

I think of one grooved face,
Low-ringed by light;
She held her glass of gin
Tight in thin hands
And talked of love: ‘You think
You’ve planed the height
Only to meet its groan,
Years cannot mend.’
And as we left the inn
Each turned to find
Another table laid.

 

Page(s) 47

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