What these girls did I could not: black tights
in June, knowing which spoon for goat's milk,
which for slow-cooked stew, pray from right
to left. Grace: the way they prayed
in long sleeves in sunlight, hair
like wet grass, clean palms warm and pale
as bread. I know now what I meant to ask:
Can I touch your hand, though what I did
was bite. There must be a word for the lack
of words for the things we have felt all
our lives, but couldn't name, a name
for the hymn that moves our blood,
old and dire, like the rain
that once shined each green blade
of that town, not each girl, but the grass
that blooms and blooms and blooms.
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