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This poem is taken from PN Review 85, Volume 18 Number 5, May - June 1992.

Four Poems Judy Gahagan

STILL LIFE WITH DOG

(Bonnard's 'Coffee')

Fin de siécle:
and I have sat in the twilight of things
in broad daylight, refusing the room's festivity,
as shadows eclipsed the accomplished white silk
    curves
of procelain.

On the edge
where all is chance and de-construction,
this shadow behind me now is just touched in to
    show
one hour, one point in space, where things have
    coincided,
nothing more.

The tactless dog
undismayed by millenial terror, paws on table,
at that outpost where we still breathe and warm
...


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