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PN Review 275
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This poem is taken from PN Review 68, Volume 15 Number 6, July - August 1989.

The Castle of the Perfect Ones Robert Nye

You'll find no mirrors in that cold abode -
Their faces are too fine for mirroring,
The perfect ones, last heirs of a long line
Who raised the dead by looking at each other
In table tops and spoons, a family
In love with its own ghosts and origins,
Homeless at home with nowhere just next door.

Pity those complete strangers their perfection.
Your funeral bores them with its brilliant doom,
Though being jealous not to let their shadows
Fall in the grave, they kneel as is seemly
And do not grin too much behind clasped hands.
They pray the resurrection, when it comes,
Will not prove irresistible to all.

You'll eat no honey in that bee-hive house
(They need no sweets who are themselves so pure)
...


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