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 109, Volume 22 Number 5, May - June 1996.

Three Poems Patrick McGuinness


Waiting Objects
'If there is a gun in Act 1, then it must go off in Act 5' -
Chekhov

I
Word Order:

These gifts from you,
arranged into
the order of
their giving, might
spell out how we
have come to this.

II
The Order of Things:

Leaving, you placed these objects that you gave,
Aligned them on my shelf, as if to stave
Away, or barricade us from, what might
Happen when you left. You left. They wait.

Act Five begins. Each one goes off on cue
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image