This poem is taken from PN Review 169, Volume 32 Number 5, May - June 2006.

An Index of First Lines

Frank Kuppner


All those days, leaving school, to find that the weather had
     changed! Why?
Almost everybody is sailing on the wrong boat.
And what exactly, I wonder, might failed love be?
Anyway; what does it matter? At any moment, an asteroid

Beyond anything else, that single expression on her face,

Can we not take more account of the actual world?
Captain, the Omniverse is behaving in a most suspicious
     manner!

'Darling?' I asked. 'Why are you whimpering?'
'Darling?' I asked. 'Why are you whispering?'
Day after day, from the huge chimney opposite her
     window,
Day after day she left to work in an office,
Dear God. I should be copying down all you say.
Do you remember how once, in West Campbell Street,
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