a stone in mourning for the temple I was a hanging jack to roast birds
that heat could kill anything
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 4 February 1659/60. (See the original erasure.)
The speaker imagines being something hard and lifeless, a stone, and the poem suggests this stone is grieving for what it used to be: a temple. A place built for reverence has collapsed into rubble, and the speaker seems to carry that loss. The second image is stranger and harsher.
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