quote · Legacy record
Birds and periodic blood.Old recapitulations.The fox, panting, fire-eyed,gone to earth in my chest.How beautiful we are,he and I, with our auburnpelts, our trails of blood,our miracle escapes,our whiplash panic flogging us onto new miracles!They’ve supplied us with pillsfor bleeding, pills for panic.Wash them down the sink.This is truth, then:dull needle groping for the spinal fluid,weak acid in the bottom of the cup,foreboding, foreboding.No one tells the truth about truth,that it’s what the fox sees from his scuffled burrow:dull-jawed, onrushingkiller, being thatinanely single-mindedwill have our skins at last.
Birds and periodic blood.Old recapitulations.The fox, panting, fire-eyed,gone to earth in my chest.How beautiful we are,he and I, with our auburnpelts, our trails of blood,our miracle escapes,our whiplash panic flogging us onto new miracles!They’ve supplied us with pillsfor bleeding, pills for panic.Wash them down the sink.This is truth, then:dull needle groping for the spinal fluid,weak acid in the bottom of the cup,foreboding, foreboding.No one tells the truth about truth,that it’s what the fox sees from his scuffled burrow:dull-jawed, onrushingkiller, being thatinanely single-mindedwill have our skins at last.
Approximate author period: c. 1970 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Adrienne Rich
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1970 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1929 to 2012; Wikidata Q270705, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q270705 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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- Contributor-provided quotation collection
Supplied reference C; CSV row 377797; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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