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“A Stranger Named Plague” by Stephanie Dickinson
Above: “Three Horses Tended by Men” by Umberto Boccioni
Stone Pavement1981, Houston
&
You _arrive_in the _time of _azaleas _and heat wave. _Hungry_ for the
high _yellow _of _a _Gulf _Coast _scorcher,_ you _eat on _Texas _Street
where oil _drum _cookers, -
“Love Song” by Rainer Maria Rilke (Translated by David Shapiro)
How could I stop myself
from meeting you? Should I rise
up over you to some other things?
I could happily make a roof
with someone abandoned in the dark
in some dumb distant spot
that never shakes, as you are trembling now.
Yet everything that grazes you and me
ties us together like a violin bow
stroking two strings into one sound.
But on what instrument have we been bound?
And what musician has us in his hand?
Oh sweet song.*
Rainer Maria Rilke was a German-language poet and novelist,