FOURTEEN

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QU YUAN

340 BCE–278 BCE

you laureate of tongue and stone,

among the rarer hues

on the spectrum from brightest bright

to darkest dark—

the villagers throwing rice into the river

to lure fish from your corpse,

stutteringly radiant still, the dragon boats racing

in the pink light—

no I won’t sign up for old age either,

anacondas

and common pearls:

of the beginning of the beginning

who spoke the tale?

you did, you did

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—from BOOKOFMARTYRS.docx by Cyrus Shams