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Recessional
In which sport do the winners
go backwards?
In tug-o'-war, I said, their bodies
taut and rooted
to heels and opponents' eyes,
locked out of self and into strain;
movement stretched in a swaying evenness,
gathering themselves to earth.
Your answer, rowing; perfect metaphor
we see now for your going,
not a retreat but a gliding somehow
into a privacy we deprived you of,
not knowing then we watched you recede
and never grasped your courage; eccentricity
an armour our ignorance only occasionally
pierced: your fondness for dried wells
and soaking streets lost to our arid musings.
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