This poem is taken from PN Review 149, Volume 29 Number 3, January - February 2003.

Four Poems

Helen Tookey

Autumn Child
For Patrick

Autumn child
you would be born with the leaf-fall
the catch in the air
that tells the year's turn

tonight, a rag of cloud
blindfolding the face of the moon

am I leaving you
or moving to greet you?


August

I am inside August, waiting
under a dome of blue glass that traps the stilled air
hanging heat and scent of tar.

It was December, the far side of the year,
when I calculated months;
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