Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 167, Volume 32 Number 3, January - February 2006.

Five Poems Elaine Feinstein


Immortality

If I believed in an old-fashioned paradise,
then you, my love, would still be talking in it.
There would be blue sky and a few clouds
seen through stone arches, as in
Raphael's 'School of Athens',with Diogenes
sprawled on the steps, and Plato in the likeness of da Vinci.
You could pursue them with your eager questions -
as you once challenged speakers at LSE.

It's not that I hope to find you there
myself, more that I cannot bear
it should be true as once you said:
We think. And learn to understand a bit.
And then we're dead...


Skin

There was a time before we met as well
as this inexorable after . If I had not
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image