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2:22 AM too hot to sleep.
I lie on the living room floor watching night go.
Five streets away like a cause of war I can hear
a car start towards me,
gathering grievance
from block to
block, claim
shifting to counterclaim on the turns and as Thucydides
said of Athens
"heading for greatness
she made the Spartans fear and forced them to fight"-
hatred
shakes
the frame.
Greatest tragedy in the world only excepting
a defeat he replied.
Anne Carson's most recent book is a translation of Iphigenia Among the Taurians.
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