Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
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)
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 Stav Poleg's Banquet Stanley Moss In a concluding conversation, with Neilson MacKay John Koethe Poems Gwyneth Lewis shares excerpts from 'Nightshade Mother: a disentangling' John Redmond revisits 'Henneker's Ditch'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 143, Volume 28 Number 3, January - February 2002.

Three Poems Caroline Sylge

Marrakech

Dressed in T shirts to match their skins
the locals group well in the photograph,
an arched back making a top left angle.

Now I can smell the tagine smoke,
see the fine lace lines of blue tiles
packed tight with pieces of red glass

I stop in the gallery to think of you,

and when I look my hands still stain
with saffron bought at market stalls
mixed with the dust from cinnamon sticks.

What had we been doing in Morocco,
somebody like you, and me?
The Djemma el Fnar was a Carnaby Street
and the snakes looked dead, you said.

Levelling over wine at the Hotel Foucauld
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image