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THE
RED HOTEL
But
for a particle of heaven, finding
its
way, a grain of sugar on her costume
jewellery
otherwise fashioned of paste,
into
her life, she would have counted her life
a
nervous affectation and refusal,
ungodly
somnolence, a flow of waiting
for
the mean crumbling of the flowers of death
to
settled upon her wasted energies;
but
that one iota of the genuine
distinguishing
her meretricious effects
was
like a little wakefulness in her soul,
brave
as a pool which no one knew existed
on
some high ochre desert plateau somewhere,
a
tiny retina which gathered photons
one
after one from nebulae of far time
into
a concern of pure and precious light,
warmth
of a kind that kindled a sentiment
in
the shy smile of strangers, from which she took
heart
and sustenance in a resolute world
which
otherwise overwhelmed with such unkind
dissimulation
that she would gladly take
her
life and collection of cheap ornaments
to
a red hotel or cruel asylum
and
forgo hope and waiting and plan goodbyes.
Alan
Marshfield
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