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This poem is taken from PN Review 91, Volume 19 Number 5, May - June 1993.

Three Poems Adam Johnson

THE FIELD

Above the once industrial town,
Where necessary buildings stand -
Brick houses in the eighties' style,
The same but for diversely painted doors -
There used to be a field,
A graveyard and a ruined church;
Lilac and black-thorn, jungles of meadow-sweet.

Close to my mother's house,
And far enough away
From the dark mansion where I went to school,
Among the long-untended graves
Of Watsons, Jacksons, Cleggs -
Narcissus and wild daffodils,
Useful on birthdays (more exotic gifts
Came from our neighbour's garden) and below,
...


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