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Prosody
by Rhina P. Espaillat

The words are what I know,
but they are no comfort.
The comfort is in the music
that says what I cannot know.

The words are what I use
to make a map of the one place
there is, but it's the music
takes me where I want to go.

The words are addresses,
but the things that live in them
have always just moved, and can be reached,
if at all, through the music.

The words are a name
for the shadow I dress in.
The radiance that wears me
answers only to the music.

    ("Voices International")

From The Shadow I Dress In, by Rhina P. Espaillat; David Robert Books, 2004; 
  www.davidrobertbooks.com (A division of WordTech Communications)

The magazines in which these first appeared are listed in parentheses below each poem.

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