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This poem is taken from PN Review 151, Volume 29 Number 5, May - June 2003.

The Fairground Scholar Robert Minhinnick

                        your name upon my belly
                        your e-mail on my breast
              when you carve your X upon my tongue
                         I'll know that I can rest


Now

can't feel your
                                pulse
can't taste your
                                dialect
can't follow your
                                gospel
can't read your
                                palm
can't remember
                                what I
can't remember
                                what it was I
wanted to say
                                but surely
it's what the
                                god of yellow
said to the
                                god of blue
there must be
                                green gods
too my sister
...


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