This poem is taken from PN Review 188, Volume 35 Number 6, July - August 2009.

Three Poems

John Gladwell

Gravity’s Echo

When hell freezes, is this what it will feel like,
gravity’s echo the only certainty now left,
in this ripple of silence, this ripple of fog,

where I now stand, holding, in this one breath,
this beach which has now become no more than a dream of itself,
of hell freezing as you then ask. ‘Is this what it will feel like?’

An old story, which, if listened to long enough,
just might come true, of laws broken,
by this ripple of silence, this ripple of fog,

but still unpunished by a sentence so short
it contains no more than this one familiar word,
of hell freezing and you then asking. ‘Is this what it will feel like?’

This tide about to change
and with it the weather,
in this ripple of silence, this ripple of fog,
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