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This poem is taken from PN Review 36, Volume 10 Number 4, March - April 1984.

A Lyric Afterwards Tom Paulin
There was a taut dryness all that summer
and you sat each day in the hot garden
until those uniformed comedians
filled the street with their big white ambulance,
fetching you and bringing you back to me.

Far from the sea of ourselves we waited
and prayed for the tight blue silence to give.
In your absence I climbed to a square room
...


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