Concettina Died and Other Stories of the East Side
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Excerpt, posted October 6, 2006 at 08:18 PM

The following is a short excerpt from October, part IV, by Louise Glück, published in the Quarternote Chapbook Series in 2004 by Sarabande Books, Louisville, Kentucky.

The light has changed;
middle C is tuned darker now.
And the songs of morning sound over-rehearsed.

This is the light of autumn, not the light of spring.
The light of autumn: you will not be spared.

The songs have changed; the unspeakable
has entered them.

This is the light of autumn, not the light that says
I am reborn.

Not the spring dawn: I strained, I suffered, I was delivered.
This is the present, an allegory of waste.

So much has changed. And still, you are fortunate:
the ideal burns in you like a fever.
Or not like a fever, like a second heart.


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