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Catherine
In ’79, in Davis, California,
I walked at evening twilight past the school on Anderson, thoughtful, isolated by uninterpretable traffic noise, when another person’s life brushed past mine. The rush of cars receded like a wave. Distracted from myself, I paused as a girl passed by on a bicycle, crying. The air held still for a long, articulate moment until the traffic resumed. 1 January 2008
A true story,
though it’s been a long time and I may have misremembered
or misreconstructed some details despite careful research.
The perfectly timed lull in the traffic was eerie.
Dedicated to S.P. The poem can also be taken as a reply to
William Carlos Williams.
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