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This poem is taken from PN Review 180, Volume 34 Number 4, March - April 2008.

Four Poems Alison Brackenbury

Before the Fall

Gina cries from the tackroom, 'What
Has she found at the carboot now?'
A stereo, glossy and fat,
Which each family played in the Seventies,
Sold in the Eighties. How
Could it possibly work? Click down a switch,

Before her bill flies back, from the Swiss millionaire,
Marked 'No forward address',
Before the pony crashes from sky
To pin my left foot to the grass
She flicks a switch.
Strings are Viennese,
Not a note is false:
Still sun is kind,
Ground yields, and we
...


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