Tide of Voices

 

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Water must flood 

the mind, as in certain diseases, the walls
between the cells of memory dissolve, blur
into a single stream of voices and faces.  

I don’t know any more about this river or if 

it can be cleaned of its tender and broken histories—
a tide of voices. 

And this is how the dead 
rise to us, transformed: wet and singing, 
the tide of voices pearling in our hands.

 

—Lynda Hull

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