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Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.

What They Had Come For

It is no contest of strength or endurance.
The white butterfly flaps, like a pair of pillowcases
in a breeze, around the sparrow—
flaps fondly as if the world were all about
beauty or friendship. He hops as sparrows do—
hops, dancing, near her, isolate on the roof.
Of an overcast day, they are the soul.
Or she is the soul, in her white robes.
He, the body in monkish brown, levitates
like so, like so. He does not need to spread his wings
to devour her. One petal of her floats
gracefully above and away, as if she had merely
misunderstood this dancing
that seemed it was what they had come for.

Portrait of Paula Closson Buck

Paula Closson Buck is the author of The Acquiescent Villa, published by Louisiana State University Press in 1998. Recent poems have appeared in ShenandoahAGNIThe Southern ReviewThe Gettysburg Review, and Denver Quarterly. She teaches at Bucknell University and is editor of West Branch. (updated 10/2005)

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