Poem 44 – Lines

Lines

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”

first line
invitation

“Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget.”

fifth line
under the influence

“The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky.”

twelfth line
feverish surprise

“But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human.”

seventeenth line
pregnant with love child
       then
stop everything and devour
until literary gestation
births a new essential
knowing
metaplasia    then

action

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All lines are taken from the first page of Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (available at your local independent bookstore!).

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