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Sarah Ruhl, a distinguished American playwright, is the author of numerous plays, including In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) and The Clean House. Other works include The Oldest Boy; How to Transcend a Happy Marriage; a stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando; the collection 44 Poems for You; and the memoir Smile: The Story of a Face (Simon & Schuster, 2021). Ruhl teaches at the Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

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Summer, Rhode Island
and Other Poems

by Sarah Ruhl
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Summer, Rhode Island

You know what a lee is; I don’t.
Behind a stone. No wind. Stop boat. A place.
Behind your back. My body. Stop the air.
Travel by stopping, full stop, just there.

As lee is a small word. Sail easy.
Lee and unlee, light is hot.
Rest here, a while longer on my
belly. A lee, a dry derry, a drought.
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