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Two Poems

Read two poems on marriage and parting by death in the Spoon River Anthology that could not be more unlike each other despite having identical themes. Nothing could be truer of marriage - it can be one person's heaven and the other's hell. It is hell for Ollie McGee

But what think you gnaws at my husband's heart?
The face of what I was, the face of what he made me!
These are driving him to the place where I lie.
In death, therefore, I am avenged.

and heaven for Sarah Brown

Wrought out my destiny — that through the flesh
I won spirit, and through spirit, peace.
There is no marriage in heaven,
But there is love.

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