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     Black Coat, Blue Lake   

     


by Rachel Hadas

 

     

 

                      

        

             

   

                      

 


 

  



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Black Coat, Blue Lake



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We picked Death’s pockets, Charlie, you and I,
And turned them inside out triumphantly,
And got away,
Retrieving the shared essence of the day:

One morning purloined from the long black coat
You’d huddled in through winters in New York
And now, beyond
The reach of weather, wore. Or was that Death

Gauntly flapping in the ankle-length
Black wrap? You looked like Death,
A little. Who
Doesn’t? The pockets all were empty
that

I know, even if I’m not sure whose they were.
Our hands as quick as lightning in and out 
Burrowed, rummaged,
Emerging cold and empty, so we spread them
 
Out in the sun, shook them as if to dry, 
Our twenty fingers wiggling as one.
We might have rolled
In the wet grass, but there was no more time
 
Keep moving! So you took the wheel again
And we resumed our circumnavigation
Around the blue
Eye of the phantom lake. Defiant joy:

Why not name it now? For there we were.
The sun got high, and you peeled off the dank
Coat, handed it
To poor skinny shivering Death to wear.

  
Empty Studio, National Arts Club by Rachel Hadas

              

 

 

        

 

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