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SHE
RUNS THROUGH RUNNING WATER
I
lie rough in sun-baked skin-oil,
the
grass fresh, a thunder grass.
She
rises, young from the river,
a
delayed take-off, a space-surprise.
I
have a hot chesty combustion.
I
cannot escape, I am loaf-warm.
She
stands in kissing water ropes, finer than air,
her
skin chromium, or like cactus skin.
I
run too, a wincing of ankles in the cressy marsh,
upkicked
water half-gumming my eyes.
She
runs, I follow
through
a country gutter, sky’s liquid teeth.
An
embarrassed gratitude tides up under my rib-cage.
I
am hungry, ecstatic and undiscerning.
The
landscape is damp with flattened petals.
We
are under a fall, at body heat, in a sharp lemony bath.
Alan
Marshfield
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