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 112, Volume 23 Number 2, November - December 1996.

Two Poems John Peck


Monologue of the Magdalene

I am not myself, I am my sisters,
yet not utterly, I am their unbound hair
in hands which, resettling it not after love
but recognition, not after tented
tastings and feedings, but after gazing
to the garden's end bringing
lightnings, lifted and were gone.

Thus, though she only
set kasha and the wine,
and then stood with back turned in the pantry
while the two men grew quiet
as the third one, the hooded stranger, gathered
them and time and blood's beat
                               and her also
into his low speaking, I held her
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image