The winter issue of the Hopkins Review includes poems by Mark Halliday, Michael Shewmaker, and Wendy Videlock; prose by Rachel Hadas and Richie Hofmann, and reviews of books by Joshua Mehigan, Erica Dawson, and others. Click here to learn more and to subscribe

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What do I call you at the end? Witness,
Mimic, tyrant of the departed years,
At times flatterer; others still-life, ghost,
Pure pool, twin, ludicrous door, or clearness
Leading nowhere, yet alluring as a frontier,
Great eye, roommate, spy—ominous, silent host.
Despite all you’ve witnessed and returned,
You recall nothing in your absolute present,
Silent movie, brittle glass bed, leaning gurney,
Knowing only what is shown, nothing learned,
What occurs but never what it has meant,
Will be, or was. Forgive this last journey
Into the earth, where you’ll be bent and crack,
Where you’ll shatter but be serene as stone,
Free from vanities that bathe the bone,
Razors of cold light lodged blindly in black.