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This poem is taken from PN Review 174, Volume 33 Number 4, March - April 2007.

The Seafarer Chris McCully


for Derek Britton

Truth? I can seal it
tell its stories:
I owned often,
how I've borne both
known sorrow's surges
wave-roiling terror -
the narrow night-watch
as the cliffs unsteadied.
my feet fettered,
clamped, ice-locked, though
hot round the heart,
at the spirit's tiredness.
those day-dawdlers
how I lived winter,
...

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