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This poem is taken from PN Review 104, Volume 21 Number 6, July - August 1995.

Two Poems Chris Woods


The Pool
is at the centre of the complex, cool blue
at the centre of our lives, as we stretch towards it
and watch the light working on the water.
The children keep returning, to look at themselves,
to leap into their centre and find refreshment there
or a rhinoceros beetle that tired of the concrete
coast of the pool like Majorca, threw itself in.

Waking up after two bottles of wine the night before,
my brain sunburned. Snakes of light moving
across the bottom of the pool. Light looping through
the weave of water. The crickets noisy like water
through taps. White chairs sitting round the pool
waiting for ideas to happen. Shadows marking out the light.
Children like purposeful porpoises.

Wanting to slow the days down, to move through them
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