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Sphinx


     If he could solve the riddle,
she would not leap
     from those gaunt rocks to her death,
but devour him instead.


     It pleasures her to hold
him captive there-
     to keep him in the reach of her
blood-matted paws.


     It is your fate, she has often
said, to endure
     my riddling. Your fate to live
at the mercy of my


     conundrum, which, in truth,
is only a kind
     of psychic joke. No, you shall
not leave this place.


     (Consider anyway the view from
here.) In time,
     you will come to regard my questioning
with a certain pained


     amusement; in time, get so
you would hardly find
     it possible to live without
my joke and me.

Written by Robert Hayden (1913-1980)

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