Ben Debus
is a graduate of Indiana University’s MFA Program. His work has appeared in Mississippi Review (online) and Subtropics.
He lives in Chicago with his fiancée, poet Cate Whetzel, and works at a law firm.
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History Lesson
In 1912, there must have been a morning
which gathered into day and fell to darkness.
There must have been a porridge-pot, the moans
of an old man who rolled from bed, the sharp
fang of an icicle upon an eave
which sparkled in that morning’s light. There must
have been a schoolhouse someplace, one which seethed
to fold its children in, its playground rusting.
I want to tell my students 1912
was there, and that each day’s undarkening
is not the first or last, but one. If heaven
could pluck the dusk of passing time, that stark
new light in 1912 might shine to us,
its brightness real, and not reflection’s luster.
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