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You will meet a stranger
wearing a strapless dress
the color of your hair and lipstick
which are a yellowish shade of green.
When she speaks she’ll say I’ve been
thinking of the word ‘antediluvial.’
You will say I’ve been thinking
about the way the word ‘porous’ rhymes
with ‘Boris.’ Clearly, both of you
are poets. So both of you are as
vague as gossamer; and both
of you wonder where to look
for the bright side; what are
the body’s boundaries; what makes
Being so much more attractive than
Doing. You will remember
meeting her many years ago, by
a river the color of spiritual
boredom. This time her feet aren’t
made of papier-maché, and she
isn’t eating the horse-flies. You
will have a brief discussion about
the eccentricities of death. You will be
best friends forever.
Gail Wronsky is the author, coauthor, or translator of sixteen books of poetry and prose. Her titles include the poetry collections Under the Capsized Boat We Fly: New & Selected Poems (White Pine Press); Dying for Beauty (Copper Canyon Press); Poems for Infidels (Red Hen Press); and Fuegos Florales/Flowering Fires, a translation of Argentinean poet Alicia Partnoy’s poems, winner of the American Poetry Prize from Settlement House Press. Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals, including Poetry, Boston Review, Antioch Review, Denver Quarterly and Volt. Her latest collection of poems, The Stranger You Are, with illustrations by the renowned artist Gronk, is just out from Tía Chucha Press.
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