Pastan, Linda

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Iowa Research Online

Masthead Logo The Iowa Review
Volume 12
Issue 2 Spring-Summer: Extended Outlooks: The Iowa
Review Collection of Contemporary Writing by Women
Article 93
1981
In the Middle of a Life
Linda Pastan
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Recommended Citation
Pastan, Linda. "In the Middle of a Life." The Iowa Review 12.2 (1981): 269-270. Web.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.2762
In the Middle of a Life Linda Pastan 
Tonight I understand 
for the first time 
how a woman might choose 
her own death 
as 
easily 
as if it were a dark plum 
she picked 
from a basket 
of bright peaches. 
It wouldn't be despair 
that moved her 
or hunger, 
but a kind of stillness. 
The evenings are full 
of closure: the pale flowers 
of the shamrock fold 
their fragile wings, everything 
promised has been given. 
There is always 
that moment 
when the sun balanced 
on the rim 
of the world 
falls 
and is lost at sea, 
and the sky seems huge 
and beautiful without it. 
269 
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I lie down on my bed 
giving myself 
to the white sheets 
as the white sheets of a sloop 
must give themselves 
to the wind, 
setting out on a journey? 
the last perhaps, 
or even the first. 
270 


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