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This poem is taken from PN Review 96, Volume 20 Number 4, March - April 1994.

'The Flickering Shadow Stanzas' Matthew Mead

Into the unlit room like non-existence
Dusk sidles like a glimpse of the unseen;
Shadows of likeness welcome all pretence
To a dimension that has never been;
I sit alone, the light behind me dies.
Dusk packs the empty corners of the room -
A darkish girl, deception in her eyes -
With complicated light and simple gloom.

Nothing was brighter than the light of day,
Warm sun, quick wind and water on the skin,
A world of blonde and blue and things to say,
White foam and further out the silver fin
And further still horizon without end,
The light that always was on land and sea -
An honest girl on whom you can depend -
Showing what is as what was meant to be.
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