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This poem is taken from PN Review 123, Volume 25 Number 1, September - October 1998.

Seven Poems Alison Brackenbury

Gold Cup

There is no one in the town.
The March skies have blown clear.
The rock-crowned hills loom round.
The sun is melted by the sudden roar,
As from a theatre, whose curtains soar.

The magpies pile their nest,
Unheeding, by the railway; they tear
Long, live twigs; pick the best.
I ought to build; but better,
Would write you one more letter,

But hear that roar instead
And feel the jar of stumble, rush of ground.
(A man is in the mud. The silks are red.)
I find no sun, no love; write, as before,
As from a theatre of distant war.


Homework. Write a sonnet. About love?
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