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profile/olga-broumas.md
Published: Wed Oct 15 1980
Chitra Ganesh, To Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
Composition

I have wanted to be married _   _had
no place to rest _   _ a heart

never remarries _   _ once
it sinks in deep _   _ though I have tried

and wanted to _   _ induce it. Ergot
bring babies, MDA _   _ being inorganic

suffuses the soul. Incomparable light.
I tried _   _ dead to the world

forgive me dead
to you _   _ compare it. Loneliness

absence of a place
to rest. Repeated _   _ ly rest in my heart

you said. You did
in mine or yours _    flexible_ being

the attitude of rest. No ledge
to lean on _   _ still. I lie in fields

the sky clouds mountains luminous
shades of grey. _   _ Three days

I walk towards the sunset
its relief _   _ a promise. Keep.

See what's inside AGNI 13

Olga Broumas is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Beginning With O (Yale University, 1977) and Sappho’s Gymnasium (Copper Canyon, 2000). She is currently the Poet-in-Residence as well as the Director of Creative Writing at Brandeis University. (updated 6/2010)

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