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Counting Backwards | Amber Coverdale SumrallShe wants to daydream my life away,
this girl who lives inside. Her voice,
long as summer light, whispers of swinging
high above a meadow fragrant with lupine,
of letting go, flying over tall grasses
with herons, red-winged blackbirds,
the slow arc to warm earth.
She carries a knife and compass,
cuts up her dresses, sleeps in a tent in the backyard.
She loves the dark refugee boy from Hungary,
builds hidden shrines to the Virgin of Guadalupe.
If someone knocks, calling her angel,
she never even turns her head.
She has saved me from countless blank pages,
the stations of the cross, a tied & suited husband.
When the phone rings she makes cocoa, cinnamon toast,
takes the photo albums out to the garden.
Come back, she says to me.
Listen to the wind in the sycamores.
Remember the one who loved you first.
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