The Atlantic | January 2002 | Wherever

Contents | January 2002

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More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly.

The Atlantic Monthly | January 2002

Wherever

by William Pitt Root

.....

Hear William Pitt Root read this poem (in RealAudio)

Wherever
you are in the
world, you

could no longer
call him a boy,

the one who
squats, hovering

like a cloud above
his own reflection

in rain pooled by
a mound of debris

once his neighborhood
where a hand, not

his own, lies
half closed, as if

beckoning,
half open, as if

letting go.

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