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By Jenny George

The world is not simple.
Anyone will tell you.
But have you ever washed a person’s hair
over a tin bucket,
gently twisting the rope of it
to wring the water out?
At the end of everything,
dancers just use air as their material.
A voice keeps singing even
without an instrument.
You make your fingers into a comb.


Source: Poetry (January 2023)

Poet Bio

Jenny George
Jenny George is the author of The Dream of Reason. She is also a winner of the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize and a recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Lannan Foundation, MacDowell, and Yaddo. George lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she works in social justice philanthropy. See More By This Poet
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