Return, By Virginia Hamilton Adair
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After a few centuries
we prodigals came home in August.
London lowered her skies.
The fatted calf withdrew
into sullen pasties.
People in pubs backed off.
We had lived among swine.
Only the small country churches
opened their dim doors to us
like ancient aunts.
Half-blind, they mistook us
for their lost congregations.
From “Ants on the Melon” by Virginia Hamilton Adair (The Modern Library: 64 pp., $12.95 paper)
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