Emergency Clinic

Caustic implacable
poem   unto and contra:

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I do not soothe your minor
� injuries   I do not
� offer   I require
�                      close history
� of the case   apprentice-
� ship in past and fresh catastrophe

�

The skin too quickly scabbed
� mutters for my debriding

�

For every bandaged wound
� I’ll scrape another   open

�

I won’t smile
�                   while wiping
� your tears
�               I do not give
� simplehearted love and nor
� allow you simply love me

�

Iodine-dark
� poem walking to and fro all night

�

If you accept   regardless
� this will be different

�

un-gainly
� unreconciled

�

unto and contra

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Adrienne Rich’s most recent book is Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems, 2004–2006. A selection of her essays, Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations, appeared in 2003. She edited Muriel Rukeyser’s Selected Poems for the Library of America. She is a recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 2006 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, among other awards.

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