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This poem is taken from PN Review 246, Volume 45 Number 4, March - April 2019.

Four Poems Luke Thompson
Three Poems after Lafcadio Hearn’s ‘Insect Musicians’

‘Let us go insect-hunting tonight,’ the poet said.
‘It will be dark and I have many lanterns ready.’


do not
leave the city

cicadas and crickets
in bamboo cages

eating melon rind
singing about melon

on a spring night
Kiriyama hears

still, small voices
risen from clay

a ghost-song in the jar
where our parents died
...


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