and like God, I will cast you out.
Your eyes blue as a drowned thing.
Your harshest lesson:
you are no part of me.Â
Learning that
will cost you ages in which
your eyes will take on the human color: grief.
Coming to words won’t even help you
name you suffering.
You will embrace
false idols.
Yet those women can let you
back in that primal crawl space
no more than I can.Â
Beth Ann Fennelly
Beth Ann Fennelly is the recipient of a 2003 National Endowment of the Arts Award. Her books include Tender Hooks (W.W. Norton & Co., 2004), Great with Child (W.W. Norton & Co., 2006), and Unmentionables (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008).
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