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Temper  
by Beth Bachmann

Some things are damned to erupt like wildfire,

windblown, like wild lupine, like wings, one after

another leaving the stone-hole in the greenhouse glass.

Peak bloom, a brood of blue before firebrand.

And though it is late in the season, the bathers, also,

obey. One after another, they breathe in and butterfly

the surface: mimic white, harvester, spot-celled sister,

fed by the spring, the water beneath is cold.



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From Temper by Beth Bachmann. Copyright © 2010 by Beth Bachmann. Used by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press.
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