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This poem is taken from PN Review 186, Volume 35 Number 4, March - April 2009.

Four Poems James Womack

Complaint

Death is not the end; some doors are never fully closed,
and hollow ghosts escape their coffins and ovens.
happen, that you’d forget it all:
the window-sill where my arms wore two smooth dents,
the code to my staircase, the heavy metal doors.
We broke into a fire-watchers’ tower and saw the city -
do you remember? - saw the city and made promises.
Were those light promises, are you allowed to forget?
Where were you when I died? Did you do anything?
If you had cried out for me to come back, I could have
at least for one day, I could have held myself alive,
but nobody, not you, not Julius, Arima, nobody…
None of you even knows where I am buried.
Would it cost you too much to find out, find me?
Is there anybody who talks about me with love,
...


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