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Edited on Sun May-11-08 08:21 PM by BlueIris
"May 1968"
When the Dean said we could not cross campus until the students gave up the buildings, we lay down, in the street, we said the cops will enter this gate over us. Lying back on the cobbles, I saw the buildings of New York City from dirt level, they soared up and stopped, chopped off—above them, the sky, the night air over the island. The mounted police moved, near us, while we sang, and then I began to count, 12, 13, 14, 15, I counted again, 15, 16, one month since the day on that deserted beach, 17, 18, my mouth fell open, my hair on the street, if my period did not come tonight I was pregnant. I could see the sole of a cop's shoe, the gelding's belly, its genitals— if they took my to the Women's Detention and did the exam on me, the speculum, the fingers—I gazed into the horse's tail like a comet-train. All week, I had thought about getting arrested, half-longed to give myself away. On the tar— one brain in my head, another, in the making, near the base of my tail— I looked at the steel arc of the horse's shoe, the curve of its belly, the cop's nightstick, the buildings streaming up away from the earth. I knew I should get up and leave, but I lay there looking at the space above us, until it turned deep blue and then ashy, colorless, Give me this one night, I thought, and I'll give this child the rest of my life, the horses' heads, this time, drooping, dipping, until they slept in a circle around my body and my daughter.
—Sharon Olds
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