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PN Review 275
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This poem is taken from PN Review 161, Volume 31 Number 3, January - February 2005.

Where I Went Gregory O'Brien

I auditioned for the part. And this way
I came to dance
to a confusion of heartbeat monitors and

portable radios. And so it fell upon me
to be the singing one
in a room given too much to silence.

In the intermittent light I was
speckled and
free. At the far end of each jaded afternoon

I was a six-foot dispenser of
effervescent drinks.
The ward was in need of a popular song

and I was it - a sponge to remove
unnecessary detail
from the ceiling so no one

was reminded of a world before
...


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