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

Intimates Alison Brackenbury
You lived too near the ghosts. For they were kind
dry, warm as snakes you never feared.
Speak now of love to men whose eyes
are moist and cold,
unkind as the true world.

For you are woken now by evening's rain
(a snake would shiver, slip into the dark)
are startled as it smashes on hot land.
...


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