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This poem is taken from PN Review 128, Volume 25 Number 6, July - August 1999.

River Song Robert Minhinnick

    Last of all the men in white
    Pull on their gloves
    And fingertip by fingertip
    Count every blade of grass.

There is a final place for you
And another for the stream.

The Ffornwg finds its secret confluence
But where one river finishes
Another flows on, different
Stronger.
                Yet all I can see
Is the silver padlock on your tongue
And you face full of fishhooks -
Those rings you fit for Saturday night.
Because everybody loves Saturday night.

Now you're married to the word
    We dare not speak
...


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