Adrienne Rich — After a Sentence in Malte Laurids Brigge

The month's eye blurs The winter's lungs are cracked Along bloated gutters race, shredded, your injured legions, the waste of our remorseless search. Your old, unuttered names are holes worn in our skins through which we feel from time to time abrasive wind. *Those who are loved live poorly and in danger* We who were loved will never unlive that crippling fever. A day returns, a certain weather splatters the panes, and we once more stare in the eye of our first failure