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A Winter Day
THOMAS CLARK
A WINTER DAY
A winter day, thirty degrees
in the sun, cold
sunset. To say
a flower in a glass
is like the sun, begs
the sufferance of the thing, the
sun. It has been so many times
compared. Instead
to say
today, a winter day
we brought home a willow spray,
put it in a glass,
studied the setting out
of its branches.
Thread and fold of the willow,
thin cloth drawing off
your hips and breasts
as you stooped to touch the glass,
and a sufferance
argued, in your eye
suffering my eye to follow.