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    American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin

    by Terrance Hayes Jun 19, 2018 1 minute

    Our sermon today concerns the dialectic
    Blessings in transgression & transcendence.
    We’re on the middle floor where the darkness
    We bury is equal to the lightness we intend.
    We stand in the valley & go to our knees
    On the mountain. One rope pulls a body down
    And into earth, the other pulls up & after stars.
    To  be divided is to be multiplied. Let us
    Ponder how it is that you & I have remained
    Alive. Mississippi & all the seas bound to sky by rain,
    The root & reach of all the trees. When the wound
    Is deep, the healing is heroic. Suffering and
    Ascendance require the same work. Our sermon
    Today sets the beauty of sin against the purity of dirt.

    __________________________________

    From American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin. Used with permission of Penguin Books. Copyright © 2018 by Terrance Hayes.

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