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  "path": "/article/208857/author-photo",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-23T10:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://newrepublic.com",
  "tags": [
    "Magazine",
    "Poetry",
    "May 2026"
  ],
  "textContent": "And you have long since outlived\nthe scene where he buried\nhis Swiss Army knife in the planting box outside the courthouse\nto avoid setting off alarms—as if you two\nhadn’t already created\nalarms enough, hadn’t sufficiently frightened\nand injured each other, which is why\nyou found yourselves in a courtroom.\nAnd that was\nso many years ago, you can now observe\nthose figures dispassionately, or even\nwith pity: they are characters\nin a novel you’re tempted to cast aside, the story\nis so worn, the people callow and self-absorbed:\nyou aren’t inclined, at first, to forgive them\nfor being as young, as ignorant\nas you were then.\nPlace the woman instead\non a ledge of schist in a city park.\nEtch wrinkles around her eyes, her mouth.\nThe rock is five hundred million years old.\nAnd she, past seventy, wears\nan old purple, Indian cotton dress,\na little frayed, which almost rhymes\nwith the fractured schist. A glacier, melting,\nhas left her there. She has survived\nher own violence. She may even begin\nto tell a story.",
  "title": "Author Photo"
}