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--- M A R K H A L L I D A Y Before you were you, before your bicycle appeared under the street-lamp, before you met me at the airport in a corduroy jacket, before you agreed to hold my five ballpoint pens while i ran to play touch football, before your wet hair nearly touched the piano keys and in advance of how your raincoat was tightly cinched when you asked about nonviolent anti-war activity and before you said "Truffaut," before your voice supernaturally soft sang "I aweary wait upon the shore," before you suddenly stroked my thigh in the old Volvo, when you had not yet said "Marcus Aureliius at 11:15" and before your white shirt on the train, before Pachelbel and "My Creole Belle" and before your lips were so cool under that street-lamp and before Buddy Holly in Vermont on the sofa and Yeats in the library lounge, prior to your denim cutoffs on the porch, prior to my notes and your notes and before your name became a pulsing star, before all this ah safer and smoother and smaller was my heart. |
© crossconnect, inc 1995-2002
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published in association with the
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university of pennsylvania's
kelly writers house
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