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This poem is taken from PN Review 104, Volume 21 Number 6, July - August 1995.

Three Poems Ruth Fainlight


Pain
The track of an electric
storm sparked and jagged
and bounced across my body,
through every limb and part,
but settled nowhere;
as a bird trapped in a room
veers and darts from one wall
to another, ceiling to floor.

Heat flared in my back:
a firework arching out
its tentacles - molten
ores and golden jets,
fading flakes of light
from earlier explosions,
a meteor shower sifting down
...


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