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"Second Coming"

By Ellen WehlePosted Tuesday, March 20, 2007, at 7:17 AM ET

Click here to listen to Ellen Wehle read this poem.


He for whom we set an extra place at table.

On the eve of bombardment

Rumors fly: Stalin himself, come to rescue his city.

How terrible our thirst, how patient,

Excalibur at lake-bottom. In Rome, a coroner

Clicks off the mic as weeping

Gangsters crowd the room, hound-like, licking their master's

Incisions. Whom we await. His field of force. Christ

Sighted doling out bread, No, someone

Else says, Sandbagging like any soldier, down by the docks.

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Ellen Wehle's book of poems is The Ocean Liner's Wake. She lives outside Chicago and is completing her first novel.
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