The expected one and the unexpected
The erect one and the one bent over
The one who says I’m talking too much and
keeps talking
The one too shy to meet your eyes
The fascinating one, and the not very,
the one you’re maneuvering to avoid
and the one you turned away who comes again
who again you turn away
This one that one the slender the fat one
The one who is stream and the one who is stone
The wet one the dry one the low and the high one
soaring over granite, its scatter of bone
The one just out of prison, the one just sentenced
and the prison warden
The one who killed, and then ate the heart of
each dead
and the one who escaped alive
and you, as though standing before yourself,
longing to be taken in—
know that whoever approaches
is the one you’ve been looking for all these
years
Know you are given many chances,
as many as the seconds, the stars
Marilyn
Krysl has published seven books of poetry, three
of stories, work in The Atlantic, The Nation, The
New Republic and other journals, in Best American
Short Stories 2000, O. Henry Prize Stories, and
the Pushcart Prize Anthology. She is former Director
of the Creative Writing Program at the University
of Colorado, Boulder, and a founding editor of the
literary journal Many Mountains Moving. She has
taught ESL in the People's Republic of China, served
as Artist in Residence at the Center for Human Caring
in Denver, worked as a volunteer for Peace Brigade
International in Sri Lanka, and volunteered at the
Kalighat Home for the Destitute and Dying administered
by Mother Teresa's Sisters of Charity in Calcutta.
She currently volunteers with Sudanese immigrants.
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